Knights of Endo Steel
by MeGaussta
Summary: It is 3805AD. The Systems Alliance has formed after leaving the Earth and Inner Sphere behind. How will this branch of humanity interact with the other galactic powers, and what happens when they find disturbing information left by an ancient race that suddenly and mysteriously disappeared? Heavily AU, with heavy Battletech influence. Rating now M for language.
1. Chapter 1

_24 July 3805AD, 180km over Terra II_

Space is an amazing contrast to itself in some ways. It contains stars, planets, nebulae, black holes, quasars, and dozens of other types of astronomical bodies. In some small, concentrated areas it has trillions upon trillions of atoms; in others, only one atom per square milliliter. The surface of a star is measured in thousands of degrees Kelvin, yet on average space approaches the limit to the coldest temperatures which mankind believe can exist. Quasars shoot out gamma rays so powerful they could render a planet completely uninhabitable hundreds of light years away. It, like many other things, is a two sided coin; both beautiful and deadly. Space may not have the intricate detail of a waterfall or a mountain range, but from where Captain John Shepard stands, it is definitely beautiful. Peaceful. Serene.

The view presented to him is humanity's crown jewel, Terra II. Well, a part of humanity's. A very small part, he would guess. Nobody had been in contact with Earth for over a thousand years. After the fall of the Star League, Shepard's ancestors left Earth in 2801AD; fed up with the five greedy Successor Lords, hereditary monarchs which reigned over a part of space surrounding Earth approximately 500 light years (ly) called the Inner Sphere. This Great Exodus was led by a charismatic leader, General Aleksandr Kerensky. General Kerensky drove the fleet hard, leaving the inner sphere and ultimately forming the clans. But Shepard's ancestors were not of the clans. A second exodus took place. Tired of being away from their loved ones and the strict rule of General Kerensky, the new exodus, consisting of only six ships, feigned a misjump when the rest of the fleet activated their solar powered Kearny-Fuchida (KF) jump drives to instantly travel through hyperspace to the next fleet rendezvous location. From one _Avatar_ class cruiser, _McKenna_ class battleship, _Baron_ class destroyer, pair of _Invader_ Jumpships, _Monolith_ Jumpship converted for agricultural use, and attached dropships, a new bastion of human power in the Milky Way was born. The jokingly named Exodus from the Exodus Fleet Fleet began to steer back towards Earth when one of the Invader Jumpships experienced a catastrophic failure of its liquid He storage system, resulting in an explosion that blew the ship into two pieces upon activation of its KF drive. The remaining ships rescued the survivors and spent 11 months attempting to fix the vessel. The repairs were a failure, however the micro-fleet grew very close in in this time, and ultimately abandoned their return voyage; they had grown closer to each other than any genetic family. Setting out further spinward and coreward, the fleet arrived at Terra II after almost exactly ten years of space travel. Other garden worlds had been passed, and three other colonization efforts had been made; however all had failed for various reasons. Terra II was unique in that it contained edible flora and fauna, mostly contained in the ocean which covered 85% of the planet. Terra II was the first successful colony developed by this fleet; approximately 20,000 light years away from Earth in a new system named Demeter after the Greek Godess of Life.

In the following decade, a government was formed. A colony was founded on one of the two continents on-planet near the coast. It was decided upon that political leaders should be based upon merit, and five individuals of the then 2049 citizens were elected to a parliament. These five individuals had the ability to set laws, regulations, and such. The whole military was controlled by a High Marshall, fleet by a Fleet Admiral, and ground forces by a Field Marshall. The general idea was that the fleet would keep the planet safe from any rogue asteroids or the majority of other threats (sentient life being at the bottom of this list); and the ground forces acted mainly as a police force and disaster relief. In desperate times, the parliament could agree to give temporary control of the newly formed Terra II Alliance to the High Marshall, but could remove any member of the military from power under the condition that they could not be re-elected at the end of their two year term and must immediately undergo a general election of the populace to determine if they would keep their position for the remainder of their term. Members of parliament could only be elected three times. The average citizen was given resources based upon their contributions to their fellow Terra II natives (there was no currency), and those convicted of extreme crimes were exiled to the wilderness, but able to re-join their former colleagues if they went well out of their way to make reparations though actions such as food gathering and a general vote to repeal their exile was passed.

An emphasis was immediately put on scientific discovery in the new Alliance, and within ten years a means to alter human DNA to avoid the problems associated with inbreeding due to a small original population size was developed. In addition, artificial wombs which could grow fetuses outside of a human were perfected. This resulted in a baby boom which lasted nearly 300 years. Various other technologies were developed in the Alliance's next few hundred years. The mass-alteration drive (MAD) was invented by Doctor Yusei Yokoyama in 3358, which effectively shrunk space-time in front of a starship, and expanded it behind the ship. This revolutionary breakthrough allowed vessels to reach FTL speeds of up to 5000c, but was highly unstable if used nonstop for over 48 hours. An unstable MAD took up to 72 hours to degauss. In 3621, the KF drive was improved upon through revolutionary changes in industry and particle physics by dozens of researchers in the Terra II's college, The Terra Institute of Science. The result was an increase in the instantaneous jump distance of a KF drive by nearly threefold, from 30ly to 85ly. At this point, the population of Terra II was a cramped 4.6 billion, and the citizens were looking to the stars once again. No longer was it adequate to simply journey to the neighboring three planets or one of Terra's two moons. Shanxi was founded in 3645 and was located 163.4ly from Terra II. It acted as a separate entity for two years before being absorbed to Terra II's government. At this point, the Terra II Alliance was renamed to the Systems Alliance. Industrial production began to move away from aircars, refrigeration units, holovisions, and turned once again to ship building. Reinforced carbon nanotubes allowed the construction of three space elevators capable of transporting newly fabricated ships into orbit. Spaceship armor had developed to polarize light and other forms of wave energy 90 degrees to each other, effectively nullifying many sources of hazardous wave energies, and even capital class laser fire (to a degree). The first Systems Alliance Fleet was deployed near Terra II, and the Second Fleet around Shanxi. Three small exploratory fleets were also christened to go fourth and explore more of the galaxy.

The most recent technological revolution came when Doctor John Shepard was working on his PhD in particle physics. Almost out of time before his Officer Candidate School class began in March of 3800, he developed the antimatter energy generator. It worked by stripping a Hydrogen atom of its electron, and smashing it into antiprotons held in place by a magnetic field. The results were groundbreaking. Space travel, ground-side life, everything was changed. No longer were solar, wind, and nuclear power the only ways of producing electricity. Even ships could vector this energy through magnetic fields to act as thrusters more efficient than antiquated H fuel torches. The only downside is that Antimatter Drives were not perfectly efficient, meaning that trace amounts of antimatter escaped through the exhaust nozzles. This increased the risk of an explosion when using the antimatter engines in an atmosphere (in atmo). John Shepard was commissioned in the Terra II Marines as a Second Lieutenant specializing in mechanized combat (to the horror of his professors and military high command), and assigned to the SSV _Agincourt_, a newly built _Lance_ class cruiser officially stated to be dedicated to exploring the galaxy further spinward for another potential colony location and acting as the Fourth Fleet's flagship. The Fourth (exploratory) Fleet consisted of the _Agincourt_ and its sister ship (the _Marathon_), four _Trident_ class heavy destroyers, four lances consisting of four Gladius fighters each which were housed in the two cruisers, two Retaliator bombers, two Clipper troop transports, eight Union Mk IV dropships, and seven research, scanning, and support vessels.

It was the view of this fleet silhouetted against Terra II that John Shepard's eyes were treated to. The _Marathon_ hung in space, long and elegant, almost like a spear. The nose of each ship was pointed like an arrowhead, and the hull ran back like the shaft of a spear, ending in a slight pyramid shape which housed five antimatter thrusters oriented in an X pattern. Each ship contained a hangar where six fighters could fit with room, or up to eight could fit in the rather cramped space. Four spires 75m each extended halfway down this shaft, and each spire held one turret containing a large laser and a particle projection cannon (PPC) the main energy weapons of the cruiser as well as the anti-missile system (AMS) designed to shoot down incoming missiles. On the rear of each spire sat a docked Union Mk IV, egg shaped ships which transported men and machines from jumpships to the ground. The nose contained two capital class gauss rifles, and three huge capital class autocannon 20's were arrayed in broadside orientation in four directions along the vessel. The _Trident_ destroyers looked similar to the _Lance_ cruisers, but were much smaller and only carried either a laser or PPC in their spires along with the AMS. The nose housed a single capital class gauss rifle. Rounding out their arsenal, five class 5 naval autocannons were arrayed broadside in two directions. The destroyers also looked boxier than the elegant angular lines of the cruisers due to the added armor which protected the vital KF jump drive, MAD, and antimatter powered generator. Each research ship was curved, with bodies designed to work in an atmosphere as well as space. As Shepard looked past the fleet, he could see the Fujian space elevator was off to his right, and the more distant Washington and Astrakhan elevators were off in the opposite horizon. The city of New Munich sat below, its surrounding lakes visible even this far away.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

Shepard turned to see Lieutenant Colonel David Anderson, the commander of Marine forces in the small fleet, floating in zero g off to his right. Shepard gave his CO a nod.

"So where exactly are we going, sir? I know opsec is great and all, but there really isn't any reason to be holding out on me. Who am I going to tell? No successor lords out here." Anderson smiled at his XO.

"Loose lips sink ships." Shepard grumbled and pulled himself away from the window, Anderson in tow.

"We are going to stop by Shanxi for an antimatter refuel and to make sure our solar sail is good to go before going out into the wild… black yonder?" Shepard groaned at his CO's attempt at humor.

"Not a whole lot for us to do until the Navy pukes find something interesting and have us land to take a look."

"Sir, the Navy couldn't find water if they fell out of a boat. I think we are going to be pretty pointless to the mission for most of this trip." The pair reached the spinning ring shaped habitation quarters and could finally walk in micro gravity. The habitation quarters of the ship rotated independently from the rest of the ship, allowing the crew to at least lay down while they slept in .17g. A few enlisted crewmen saluted the pair of officers smartly as they passed before carrying on with their duties. Upon arriving at Anderson's quarters and Shepard found himself being steered inside, with the door closing behind him. The senior man turned on a static emitter and John raised an eyebrow, inviting Anderson to speak.

"We found some weird readings around 500ly from Shanxi with the satellite dish farm on Shanxi's moon. As in, off the damn charts weird. The science nerds are saying that it is way too patterned to match anything that is naturally occurring and it doesn't match any known signals. You know enough about science to potentially help figure out what is going on when we get there. The Parliament also has several eggheads from the university coming along in those research ships. They want answers." Shepard glared at the jab at him and his former colleagues.

At this point, the jump klaxon sounded, signaling 5 minutes to the start of their voyage. KF drives took an entire week to charge their capacitors with a massive solar sail which collected energy from a nearby star, and an additional jump could be stored in the on ship batteries for emergencies. While technically the Captain could jump on capacitor power then immediately again on battery power, this was generally frowned upon except in cases of extreme distress. As far as he was concerned, this just meant that John was trapped on this damned tin can for an extra week. Damn Navy.

"I had better get hunkered down for the trip. And thanks for the info." His CO smiled and nodded to him. Joking aside, this was potentially huge. If they could confirm that another space faring species existed, it would change the universe as humans knew it. It explained why an egghead Marine that was only given the rank of Captain a year ago was in a senior Major's billet. John enjoyed research, but wanted to make military a career. He knew that doing a good job here could result in promotions in the future. Everything in the Systems Alliance was given based on merit, especially senior officer ranks, and here he had an opportunity to greatly contribute to his nation. He wasn't about to turn that down. Anderson turned off the static emitter and motioned to the door. Shepard walked down the now empty habitation section hallway to his quarters. He powered up his cryostatis unit and set it for 7 days and 15 minutes. With luck, he would be unconscious when they jumped the second time. While not necessary, John hated the sensation of going through a jump while awake, and being in cryosleep kept him from being bored out of his skull. As the cryo door opened and he attached his medical monitors, he could only think.

_I wonder if there is anybody else out there?_

_4 Sep 3805, Target System Nadir Jump Point_

Shepard had been lucky on their trip to Shanxi. He awoke after their jump. This time he was no so lucky. He groggily awoke from his cryo-sleep to hear the 60 second to jump warning klaxon. In his somewhat cognizant state, he shoved the door open and began ripping the electrodes from his body.

_Damn, damn damn damn! _It was just his luck. While John did not suffer from Transition-Disorientation-Syndrome (TDS), it was still an unpleasant experience to say the least. He strapped into his seat and didn't have to wait long. A final warning tone was sounded for the jump, and seemed to slow down as the KF drive engaged. His surroundings appeared to stretch out forever; his room larger than the universe. Flashes of light in various colors in the visible spectrum exploded in his vision, and John was awed by the spectacle. Just as suddenly as his surroundings had distorted, they snapped back into normalcy. He felt slightly queasy and his knees threatened to give out even in the small amount of gravity as he unbuckled and stood up. A short trip later ended on the command deck, which appeared to be abuzz with activity. He approached one of the sensor consoles being manned by a chief, hearing nervous chatter from the crew.

"What is that? It is massive!"

"I hope it is friendly." Shepard looked at the screen and saw the solar system's layout. The system itself was named Hercules and was located in a cluster of stars designated Attican Beta. There were four planets. The second one, Eletania, actually contained a breathable atmosphere and was a lush green with what were either jungles or forests. But that is not what held his attention. There was an obviously non-natural object orbiting outside of the last planet. It looked sleek. Dangerous. Two connected arms extended outward from a glowing core which seemed to be contained by two spinning rings. It looked like some giant weapon. And the whole thing was over 15km long. Lovely. Rear Admiral (Lower Half) Stephen Hackett approached him, and he quickly greeted the man. Going to attention and saluting was just not practical in the zero gravity sections of the ship.

"Good afternoon, sir." Hackett looked at the screen and wrinkled his brow in frustration.

"Good afternoon, Captain. Any guesses as to what the hell we are looking at?" Shepard just shook his head.

"No clue, sir. If I had to guess it looks like some sort of railgun weapon. The blue ball is likely the energy source, but I don't have a clue about what that source is. It isn't antimatter. It could be fusion powered. Cherenkov radiation could explain the coloration at least, but two spinning rings shouldn't be able to contain such a large nuclear reaction, even if they were magnetized. Also, if it is a railgun, it has to be inefficient as hell. The size of the projectile would have to be big enough to touch both arms, and with a projectile that big, you'd think that any sort of reloading mechanism would be very large. Just speculation though, sir. I really don't have a clue. Fortunately, if it is a weapon, the light from our arrival won't reach it for another 12 minutes."

Hackett had started frowning at the mention of a weapon, and the frown only deepened as John continued.

"Alright, I want the fleet behind a planet. Get something big and solid between us and that thing. Have an emergency course plotted and the KF drive ready to do an emergency jump. Any hint that it has started turning toward us, I want the fleet to be at least 60 light years away from this system." The navigator began relaying his commands, ordering the fleet into MAD powered supercruise to take shelter behind the rocky second planet; it seemed to mass slightly smaller than Terra II.

After a mad dash to avoid being within the line of sight of the newly named "big ass alien gun," by a crusty old Senior Chief, the crew began to relax. The light which they emitted upon jumping in system reached the construct, but it continued on its lazy orbit of the star without turning towards the small human fleet. After an hour of waiting Hackett ordered the _SSV Troy_, one of the heavy frigates, out of cover in order to investigate the object. The _Troy_ approached carefully and parked one light second away. The mysterious object did not react, and soon the rest of the fleet was burning towards it. The fleet remained in close proximity to the object for five hours while the research vessels gathered every bit of data and readings that their instruments could measure. Hackett ordered the fleet back to the gravity neutral nadir point to collect solar energy so that their return voyage could begin. Each ship unfurled their large and fragile solar sails to power up the KF drive capacitors, and the week long charge up began.

_7 Sep 3505, Hercules Nadir Jump Point_

John bolted up at the first sound of the general quarters alert and quickly noticed the absence of gravity. All Systems Alliance ships automatically disabled the rotation of the habitation modules whenever general quarters were sounded. Not to save power; but to keep crewmembers who were rushing from one end of the ship to the other from having to swap from a zero g environment to one with gravity simulated by centrifugal force. One advantage of the antimatter power plant was that the ship would rarely need for energy. Shepard "crawled" down the walkway to the main body of the ship, turned towards the bow and then up the second of four spires, this one labelled with a "2." Suddenly the ship lurched, and a deafening bang was heard. Something had hit the ship. As he made his way to his dropship, the _Hard Boiled_, he could hear the high powered whine of the weapons capacitors bringing the naval PPCs and the pair of naval Large Lasers (LL) up to full power. That got him moving even faster, and he entered the Union IV dropship cargo bay. In the 25th century, mankind invented the Battlemech. Each mech was 10-20m tall and massed between 20-100 tons. John scrambled up the side of his 65 ton _Myrmidon_ and into the cockpit. He quickly grabbed his bulky neurohelmet that allowed him to control the fine motion and balance of the mech with his body's own dexterity and sense of equilibrium and set it on top of his head, connecting the leads and completing the startup procedure. Meanwhile, the dropship he was in shuttered with each launch of the _Agincourt_'s capital size long range missiles (LRMs). Upon powering up fully, he gave his pilot the command to undock. A loud clunk sounded as the docking collar let the _Union Mk IV_ dropship separate from the cruiser. John turned his attention to his command display. His mech was connected to the _Agincourt_'s sensor system, and it showed eighteen ships of unknown origins. The small research fleet's combat vessels were outnumbered 3 to 1.

The sensors showed ships of two sizes. They were all horrifically ugly, and looked like somebody had welded different sized boxes together, with bulbous growths around the outside of each ship. He was relieved to see that the every ship's solar sail had been retracted. A ship would basically be dead in space without it. John zoomed in on one of the three larger ships, roughly the same length of the _Agincourt_. A spike of energy was indicated, and the ladar system detected an incoming projectile at roughly .01c. The projectile itself was roughly the size of a mech-class gauss projectile. John saw the _Agincourt_ fire its starboard and upward maneuvering thrusters on the display, deftly maneuvering out of the path of the incoming projectile. The LRMs reached the enemy formation, and the few that made it through splashed on some kind of invisible barrier, leaving the cruiser unhurt. As the enemy fleet entered laser and PPC range, John commanded his spherical dropship to take position beneath the cruiser. Hackett had ordered the Fourth Fleet's six combat ships into a planar orientation perpendicular to the aggressors, separated by a scant ten kilometers with the bows of the cruisers and frigates pointed at the enemies. The attackers had separated into three groups of six ships each.

The human cruisers opened fire with their main weapons. Both ships sent four sapphire beams of energy from their spires into the larger ship in the central formation. This time, the barrier did little to stop the high energy lasers fired by the two human cruisers. The blocky target was neatly sliced open by the _Marathon_, while the _Agincourt_'s lasers refracted from their original path as the barrier futilely flared to life again and neatly cut a fighter sized chunk of the cruiser's front off. Shortly after the lasers had hit, the human frigates opened fire with their PPCs and lasers. A dozen bolts of lightning and light seemed to connect the human fleet with their adversaries. Shepard was watching one of the smaller "frigate" class targets when it was hit by a good (or lucky) shot from two PPCs belonging to one of the human frigates. The impacts visibly shook the target, and electricity scattered over the hull. After the static had dissipated, the dead ship was left drifting towards the humans while slowly rotating from the force of the PPCs, two blackened holes several meters across marking the locations of impact.

The human Gladius fighters picked a frigate that had drifted off from its formation to harass and the Retaliator bombers followed distantly. One Gladius fighter was targeted by some sort of laser point defense system housed in one of the cancer-like bubbles on the ship. The red laser light show was beautiful, a stark contrast to the ugly ship it came from. The Gladius orbited the frigate twice, firing its pulse lasers into the hull of the ship before the laser defense system landed a string of hits, sawing one of the wings off. The fighter looked like it would remain in control until the pilot overcompensated for the lost wing and sent it spinning off away from the battle. The laser defense system zeroed in on the fighter and it came apart in a hail of laser fire. While the point defense had been busy tracking the fighter, the Retaliators had started their torpedo runs, and launched two anti-capital Sunburn torpedoes. Both torpedo engines ignited, one getting past a different point defense system and streaking into the port side of the frigate. Inside the Sunburn torpedo, the thermite nose charge ignited and burned through the hull rapidly before the fission warhead detonated. The explosion ripped the ship into two rough pieces. After a minute, seven enemy ships had been destroyed, and eight more were damaged. However, the _Agincourt_ had taken three hits from the enemy ships along its main hull, and half of one of the spires had been shorn off by another round. All of the other human ships had taken various degrees of damage, with the frigate _Troy_ being the worst off, missing a large piece of its nose and three other hull breaches. John knew it wouldn't be long before the Fourth Fleet would start suffering actual losses. One of the human gauss rounds finally hit a target, and John was shocked to see the blue bubble of light surround the ship, which was unharmed by the capital sized weapon which was on a course for it less than a second earlier. A naval gauss round had enough energy to flatten a large city from orbit, and the projectile had been shrugged off like it was nothing.

His dropship had begun firing away at the closest frigate sized ship with its size 20 autocannons and medium lasers when another hostile projectile was detected by the computer, and John watched the _Troy_ narrowly avoid the shell, only for it to streak into one of the civilian research ships huddled 100km behind the firing line of cruisers and destroyers. The round punched cleanly through one side of the _Niels Bohr_ and out the other, and for a moment John hoped that it hadn't hit anything important. Not even a second later, the _Niels Bohr_ exploded in a giant antimatter fueled explosion. John looked on in shock at the screen as the explosion reached him. Pieces of the research ship peppered his small dropship, and his pilot was barely able to avoid a larger piece of armor that would have clipped the bottom of their craft, likely destroying the engine cowlings. John saw the last enemy cruiser explode in a fusillade of laser fire, and all of the enemy ships quickly rabbited into FTL. The _Agincourt_ tracked them until they reached the giant weapon like construct, and the core flared to life at which point they disappeared from the scope. They had held out against a more numerous foe, destroyed nearly half the aggressor's fleet, and forced them into a retreat with virtually no combatant casualties. John was shocked at the loss of , but he had a job to do, and right now that job was to get his dropship attached to the _Agincourt_ in preparation for an emergency KF jump powered by batteries to get them the hell out of this system. Maybe the Navy was good for something after all.

"Lieutenant Moreau, get us docked back on the _Agincourt _so we can skip town. I am going to call Hackett and ask him what he wants us to do. Oh, and good piloting. We almost got clipped by that debris, but you did a great job avoiding it." Lieutenant Jeff "Joker" Moreau seemed in a daze when he responded.

"Yes sir, I will get it taken care of." John switched comm frequencies to the _Agincourt_'s bridge and Admiral Hackett's face appeared, looking grim.

"Sir, I have us moving in to dock with the _Agincourt_, what are your orders?"

"Captain Shepard, unfortunately, you can't dock with us. One of our spires took a hit and got ripped off. We don't have a docking port." Hackett sounded exhausted, even though the entire engagement took less than two minutes.

"I am going to need you to stay here, Captain. Sensors show that the second planet contains a breathable atmosphere and has liquid water oceans. Land there and lay low until we can bring in an actual fleet to secure the region and bring you home."

Shepard couldn't believe what he was hearing. Maybe the Navy was useless after all.

"Permission to speak freely, sir?"

"Granted."

"Sir, you want my single dropship to land on an unknown planet in a system we just had hostile contact in with what was likely to be extraterrestrials? Hostiles which had a fleet of warships and that attacked without agitation? Sir, my dropship can't even take a lance of modern fighters, let alone a frigate. I was watching one of their smaller frigate class ships during the battle. It swatted aside a naval gauss round with some sort of barrier, and most of the _Hard Boiled_'s heavy weapons are Autocannon. I don't have much more armor than the _Niels Bohr _did."

"Captain Shepard, I understand what I am asking you to do. I believe that you have the command acumen to evade whatever the hell it is that attacked us here. I wish I could do more, but staying here to recharge our KF drives is too risky. If a sail gets damaged, that ship is stuck in the system, and unlike our frigates and cruisers, the _Hard Boiled_ can land in atmo, power down, and pretend it doesn't exist. The Second and Third Fleets will be here to pull you out and engage any more hostiles. I can leave a Retaliator and a lance of Gladiuses with you for close support if it comes to that." Shepard had a bad feeling about what he was asked to do, but couldn't exactly refuse the order.

"Understood, sir. I will get it taken care of."

"I know you will Captain. Hackett out."

John switched channels to his bridge before relaying his orders.

"Joker, get us in an equatorial orbit around that garden planet. 150 kilometers up. We need to find a place to land and power down to keep the hell off of sensors."

"Will do, sir. So we are getting left here while the fleet bravely runs away? It is so nice to feel appreciated."

"Tell me about it."

Two hours later, the _Hard Boiled_ and its five escorts had made their deorbiting burns to set down in a dense jungle. The active scanners had been turned off, and the ship was running on fusion engines instead of antimatter to prevent any unwanted explosions. Four columns of fire vaporized the trees directly beneath the landing site and the 4000 ton dropship settled on its landing gear.

_A/N PLEASE READ_

_This is a universe merger between the Mass Effect and Battletech series. You may know Battletech through the Mechwarrior video game series popular in the 90's. This story is set roughly 700 years later than the dates which the Mass Effect series began, so the technologies available to the Citadel races are slightly more advanced. I plan on keeping this story almost exclusively in the Mass Effect universe, and have decided to not mark it as a true "crossover." This story will be highly AU, and relationships between the Citadel races and humanity will be vastly different than other fanfics out there. Sorry, no human/quarian alliance separate from the Citadel. That said, I hope it will be enjoyable to read. I plan on having each chapter length to be approximately this long. As you may know, in the Battletech series, humanity is in a state of technological decay. I did not want this to be the case in this story, so if you are familiar with that series' lore, you will find this is not the case. The Systems Alliance does not know about the clans, either. That was simply a nod to the Battletech fans out there. I will do my best to explain the weapons and technology from that universe for people unfamiliar with it, however I may not always remember to do this. I encourage you to use the Battletech wiki in times of confusion located at sarna dot net. Even better, go and read the books! They are very good, and I was sorely tempted to have the humans of the Inner Sphere meet the Council races, but that gave me a headache. If you are looking to get into those books, the Warrior Trilogy is a great place to start. A simple google search can tell you where to go from there. I will also try to include a codex of sorts at the end of each chapter to help explain some of the important objects/places/people/other nouns associated with Battletech. _

_CODEX:_

_Terra II: Terra II is the homeworld of the Systems Alliance and roughly the same size and temperature of Earth. The length of a Terra II day is 30 standard (Earth) hours, resulting in larger temperature shifts between day and night than those found on Earth. Numbering approximately 6.8 billion by 3805, it is mostly a water world (86% water) with an atmosphere of 36% Oxygen, 63% Nitrogen, and 1% other gases. Two continents exist, one approximately the size of Africa on Earth, and the other the size of North America. Both continents are almost entirely urbanized and the population density is very high. Multiple island chains exist randomly throughout the oceans, and in order to fit the high population on the relatively small land mass, the humans had to build up. Vast skyscrapers standing over 5000m tall make up the largest cities on Terra II. Artificial floating islands give Terra II most of its farmland. Terra II is unique in that aquatic ships make up a very large part of life on planet. The Systems Alliance even maintains a wet Navy responsible for security of the water trade routes. Crime is very low on Terra II, but does exist, mostly in the form of piracy of oceangoing vessels._

_Shanxi: Shanxi is slightly larger than Terra II with only a single large ocean. The remaining super continent makes up most of the landmass of the planet, and supports a population of 4 billion. Shanxi is uncomfortably cold, with an average temperature of 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) during summer months. During winter, the average temperature drops to 0 degrees Fahrenheit (-18 degrees Celsius). Due to even colder temperatures towards the poles, most of Shanxi's population live within 400 miles of the equator. Local flora and fauna flourish despite the harsh conditions, and certain flowers are known to bloom even in the winter time due to proteins which drastically lower the freezing temperature of water in their cells._

_Successor__ Lords/Great Houses: The five entities struggling to claim rulership over the Inner Sphere._

_KF drive: The primary method of interstellar travel, the KF drive transports a ship through hyperspace to a new location. Both start and end points must be located at zenith or nadir points. To charge the KF drive, a large "jump sail" approximately 1km in diameter is extended. It takes a week for enough charge to be stored to safely power one jump. On-board batteries can also be charged, allowing one KF jump to be "stored" for later use._

_Lance: Not to be confused with the Lance class cruiser, a lance is a unit of four objects. Four mechs, four fighters, four bombers, four soldiers, etc._

_Spinward: In the direction the galaxy is spinning._

_Coreward: Towards the core of the galaxy._

_Anti-Spinward: In the opposite direction the galaxy is spinning._

_Rimward: Away from the core of the galaxy._

_PPC: Short for Particle Projector Cannon. These fire steams of charged protons or ions at a target, and appears similar to lightning bolts when fired. PPC projectiles move slightly less than the speed of light._

_Laser: Short for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. Standard lasers burn for approximately one second, while a pulse laser variant fires many successive shorter pulses of energy. Pew pew._

_Autocannon (AC): Autocannon are fast firing, auto loading chemical powered weapons. There are four sizes of autocannon: 2, 5, 10, and 20. The larger the autocannon size, the more damage it does. Autocannon can essentially be thought of as large rifles._

_Gauss Rifle: Gauss rifles use a magnetic field to launch a projectile at extreme speeds. All gauss rifles in this fanfic will use a standard bullet shaped projectile. It is the 39th century, and in standard battletech Lore, gauss projectiles were balls. Humanity moved past that 10 centures ago. In the case of warship sized gauss rifles, projectiles are fired at approximately .0025c, or .25% the speed of light._

_Lance class cruiser: A Lance class cruiser is 802m long, masses 725,000 tons, and is equipped with a habitation module that spins in order to simulate gravity. The Lance class cruiser has a crew of 356. It is armed with 4 capital sized large lasers, 4 capital PPCs, 2 capital gauss rifles, and 12 capital AC20's. The Lance class cruiser is the workhorse of the Systems Alliance Navy._

_Trident class destroyer: A Trident class destroyer is essentially a smaller version of the Lance class Cruiser. It is 540m long, masses 485,000 tons, and has a crew of 262. It is armed with 2 capital Large lasers, 2 capital PPCs, a capital gauss rifle, and 10 capital class AC5's. Its appearance is similar to that of the Lance class cruiser, but the Trident class destroyer contains blockier armor which covers the vital KF drive, MAD, and antimatter powered generator which many say detracts from the more angular and sleek look the Lance class has._

_i dot imgur dot com /byAYZW1 dot jpg_

_Gladius: The Gladius is a single seat fighter which is the primary fighter for the Systems Alliance Navy. It is 20m long, masses 16,000 kg (8 tons), and carries 5 medium pulse lasers. ***_The Gladius image and ship specs given are from the game Star Citizen. Star citizen is currently in Alpha, but looks like it will grow to be a great game. I highly recommend that you check it out if you like space/flight simulators.***

_i dot imgur dot com /rl6pqtp dot jpg_

_Retaliator: The Retaliator is the primary heavy bomber for the Systems Alliance. It is 71m long, masses 188,000 kg (94 tons), and carries a crew of 6. It has five manned defensive turrets, each with a pair of medium pulse lasers. Additionally, four Sunburn Anti-Capital Torpedoes are housed in its bomb bay. These torpedoes are designed to target ships classed frigate and above. ***_The Retaliator is also a ship in the Star Citizen universe. The Retaliator is probably my favorite looking ship out of any Sci-Fi game/movie/series I have seen. The ship is too large for one picture to really do it justice. If you want to see it from multiple angles, I would recommend googling "Aegis Retaliator Pre-Flight Check" and watching the video.***

_i dot imgur dot com /VSr49IH dot jpg_

_Prodigy Class research ship: The Prodigy class research vessel is unarmed and very lightly armored. It is primarily a ship used to gather and analyze data. Inside a Prodigy, the most advances scanner systems available to mankind are housed and coupled to a semi-AI which catalogs and analyzes data faster than any human could. It is designed to be able to land on the surface of a planet to gather readings, so it was designed to be aerodynamically stable and produce lift. A Prodigy class ship measures 210m long, masses 120,000 tons, and carries a crew of 30._

_i dot imgur dot com /vFtfQNM dot jpg_

_Battlemech: The Battlemech is the pinnacle of land-based warfare according to humans. First designed in 2439, it is a walking machine massing anywhere from 20-100 tons. Each Battlemech stands anywhere from 10-20 meters tall and carried a variety of weaponry. Most Battlemechs are bipedal and are controlled with inputs similar to an aircraft's. In order to execute non-orthodox movements or to control balance in uneven terrain or under fire, the pilot wears a neurohelmet. This helmet actually interfaces with the human's brain to allow them complete control of the mech. _

_Eletania: Eletania is a garden world which is the second planet from its sun in the Hercules system of the Attican Beta Cluster. It is an uncolonized world and is covered by verdant jungles and freshwater oceans. Current estimates give it a 22 standard hour day and an equatorial daytime temperature of 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degrees Celsius) with estimated humidity ranging from 70% to 100% for its current orientation to its sun. No further information is available on Eletania. _

_Anyways, sorry for the super long author note. It shouldn't be this long again in the future. That said, reviewing this story will help motivate me to continue it. My current goals will put this at approximately 300-400k words when I get through the plot I have planned for the story. I haven't decided on a romance option currently. I am a huge fan of Tali, but there is a large quantity of Tali fics out there and I am not sure what I want to do. What do you think? Leave it as a review!_


	2. Chapter 2

_Quick A/N: Rating has been changed to M for language._

_7 Sep 3505, Hercules System, Eletania_

John sat on the command couch of the _Hard Boiled_, mulling over his options. In the chaos, he hadn't even had the opportunity to contact Colonel Anderson. Hackett had ordered a boarding party, led by Anderson, aboard one of the derelict vessels which had finished searching the vessel more quickly than Shepard had expected. A very cursory "investigation" into the remains of the _Niels Bohr_ turned up no survivors or bodies, which managed to surprise nobody. It would likely take a time intensive search op to find the remains of the crew. Instead of sticking around to chase down pieces of the research ship, Hackett had ordered the _Agincourt _and the _Marathon_ to destroy as much of the wreckage as possible before ordering the fleet to execute an emergency KF jump five minutes ago. It made John shake his head in disbelief at the pacing of events. The last shots of the battle had been fired less than 35 minutes ago, and now he was stuck on some crazy hot-ass planet with no support in charge of thirty other poor sobs for at least another week.

_Well, first thing's first._

"Pressly!" John called his navigator over. Lieutenant Charles Pressly acted as his XO aboard the dropship, and kept things running when Shepard went groundside. The chain of command for the fourth fleet was a jumbled mess, and too few people were forced to fill too many billets. John was the XO of the fleet's marine forces, but was the CO of the _Hard Boiled._ John had two XO's, one for groundside ops, and Pressly for the _Hard Boiled_. Lieutenant Pressly was an excellent XO, and started life as a lowly Recruit Yeoman. Because he started as an enlisted sailor, he was pushing 50, yet was not as senior as John. His previous status of enlisted did give him more respect from the crew, but that is not to say that they were disrespectful towards their CO.

"Yes sir, what do you need?"

"Have the crew pull out the camo netting. We need to hide our dropship and our escort. Have everybody put on armored hardsuits when they go outside. We don't know if there are nasty bacteria or anything else out there, and I sure as hell don't want to survive being stuck on this rock just to get sick and die anyways. Try to get some natural cover thrown against the ship and over the Retaliator. I want the Gladiuses inside the _Hard Boiled's _fighter bay yesterday." John ticked off his orders in his head.

"I'll get it taken care of. I already powered down all of our reactors and generators. They will be hot for the next 8 or so hours, but after that we should blend right in and not show up on IR or thermal scans. We are running on minimal battery power. Should have enough juice for about a month, even with us having the passive scanners turned up to maximum sensitivity. Going from full shutdown to powered up should take well under a minute. I will let the flyboys know to turn everything off on their end too." John nodded. He knew a great deal about land based combat, and had a working knowledge of naval combat. Still, it didn't hold a candle to the expertise his XO had in the area. If Pressly had everything shut down immediately, John figured it was probably pretty damn important.

"All right. Let's get on this. If we can get some good cover on us, we can sit on our duffs for the rest of this vacation." Pressly gave him a knowing smile, replying with the mantra of pretty much every armed service for the past millennia.

"Hurry up and wait, sir."

_7 Sep 3505, Uncharted Space_

Admiral Hackett "floated" through the door guarded by two serious looking marines armed with Remington flechette shotguns. He donned a bio-hazard suit and entered the containment area. The room itself looked like it could be in any zero gee hospital. Two dozen beds were fixed to the floor in neat rows, the walls, the floors, the linens; everything was a bland white color. There were multiple windows lining the bay, but the ones which looked out from the containment room to unquarantined sections of the ship had an opaque (white) plastic covering to dissuade curious crewmembers from looking in. It even smelled of alcohol-based preservatives. Stephen Hackett hated it. But the ultimate target of his visit was laying on one of the beds. It was, simply put, an alien. The crew had restrained it with reinforced plastic straps and was using every medical scanner available to get readings from it. Medical doctors swore to protect their patients… even crazy looking aliens that had killed 31 of their former human colleagues a couple of hours ago.

Hackett wasn't sure if he was more surprised by the outcome of the battle or the appearance of the alien. On paper, they had won a decisive victory, the destruction of the _Niels Bohr_ was a freakish outlier; an unlucky occurrence that one could almost dismiss from the results of the battle. Almost… if he was willing to ignore the thirty souls on board. Which Hackett was not about to do. Even if the results suggested a landslide victory, the admiral knew that the battle was much closer than it appeared to be. Another few minutes and the human fleet would have begun to suffer from the negative effects of combat loss grouping. It was pretty basic. As two forces were locked in battle, especially when those forces used machines, they could take damage without being destroyed or taken out of the fight. When one force began to take losses, the other started to gain an advantage in firepower and the ability to concentrate that firepower on fewer targets, leading to further casualties. Combat loss grouping had the very real potential to snowball faster than a commander could safely compensate for. The Fourth Fleet was very close to the tipping point where he would have had to order an emergency jump out of system. Thinking once again about the thirty brilliant minds lost aboard the research vessel, the admiral wondered if he should have made the call as soon as the jump sails had been safely stowed. The resulting emotion was a righteous anger towards himself and the... _creature_ laying two feet in front of him.

It was an ugly being, Hackett concluded. Its skin was a sickly mix of brown and beige, and it had four eyes, one pair set atop the other pair. There were multiple folds of what the admiral assumed was skin on the creature's forehead, and where the nose would be on a human seemed to be made of nothing _but_ folded skin. The alien's stature was surprisingly very similar to that of a human's; a bulkier upper body and arms with a thinner waist. It even had five fingers. Colonel Anderson had told him that this one was the only alien alive on the ship he had ordered the marines aboard. Not a single shot was fired. According to Anderson's reports this one had been wearing a more elaborate uniform than any of the other aliens on the ship. Hackett turned his back on the unconscious alien in the bed and pulled himself into the decontamination chamber before entering the hallway and turning to the doctor in charge.

"Keep it alive, if you can. We will need to try to find a way to communicate with it for an interrogation. Try to keep it sedated, but let me if it regains consciousness. I want the bastard to know how fucked it is." The doctor was a Commander with the skin the color of rich coffee, and didn't hesitate to show his disapproval with Hackett's statement.

"Sir, as a doctor I cannot permit anything to happen to any patient of mine. We are doing everything we can. A blood sample showed that it shares protein chirality with us, but the salt which makes up the buffer in its blood is potassium iodide based. We are having to specially mix IV fluid for it. Unfortunately, our supply of solid Iodine is low and we are likely going to run out if we stay in this system longer than a week. If you can assure me that no harm will come to it, I will notify you if it awakens." Hackett grumbled, knowing that the doctor was right and that he couldn't actually do anything to the alien.

"Fine. Just do what you can for it and keep me in the loop, doctor."

_8 Sep 3505, Widow System, Citadel, Council Chambers_

"This is an outrage! If the Asari or Salarians were attacked, you would send your fleets in! An unknown foe _attacked us_ _without provocation_ during one of our patrols in the Attican Beta cluster. I thought that the council defended its client races!" Councilor Tevos sighed.

"Ambassador Balak, if this race was to attack you in your own territory or you could provide stronger evidence that they were the ones to attack first this council would immediately send reinforcements in. There was no reason why the Batarian Hegemony was patrolling the Attican Beta cluster in the first place. We are aware that there is a garden world in the Hercules system. The council has not approved of any new colonization efforts in the system, given the militaristic nature of your previous "settlement efforts" which have only served to draw the ire of the Terminus Systems. We feel it would be best if the Hegemony would cease expansion to new systems and star clusters." The Batarian ambassador's face turned an even darker shade of brown in his rage.

"We lost eight ships! _EIGHT!_ Three cruisers and five frigates were destroyed! Those ships contained nearly two thousand of my people! That isn't counting the seven other frigates that were crippled. Casualties on those ships numbered another four hundred! We sent 18 of our newest ships on that patrol, and only three came back undamaged! These _aliens_ only had six war ships!" Councilor Valern was startled by this revelation.

"So this "fleet" of six warships and a couple of dozen fighters attacked your more numerous forces while leaving another seven ships in reserve? And they were all behind the six ships that destroyed your patrol fleet? Logic would suggest that the seven ships were non-combatant, which would imply that _they_ were not the ones looking for a fight, ambassador." Balak seemed to grow even darker and Sparatus cut him off before he could make another outburst.

"While sending in an entire fleet is off the table, the council is very interested in this new race and serving justice, if it is called for. We will begin investigations immediately into this alleged attack and this new race will be put down with extreme prejudice if they do not comply." Balak put an air of superiority on his face before opening his mouth, only to be cut off yet again, this time by the Asari councilor.

"That will be all, Ambassador Balak. Please allow us time alone to discuss our course of action." With that, Balak's foul temper returned and he stormed out of the chambers. Sparatus was the first to speak.

"While I don't care in the slightest if the Batarians get destroyed while attempting to illegally colonize another world, this new race worries me. The Hegemony's Navy is not very advanced on average, but if Balak was honest about their losses being the new classes of Batarian warships… well, as you know the Turian Navy sold them the manufacturing processes rights to our previous cruiser's class armor and weapons a year ago. The majority of the Hierarchy's Navy consists of the older _Imperator_ class cruisers while we build our more modern _Primarch_ class. These aliens could potentially be a threat to Citadel security if they can overcome such long odds against them in combat." Tevos nodded, as did Valern.

"Councilors, I believe that the STG has equipment better suited for this situation than a single Spectre does. I would be happy to dispatch one of the best STG teams available to the Hercules system to investigate." Sparatus didn't seem convinced, and Tevos responded evenly.

"I believe that would be the best course of action. However, I think that the Turians, as well as the Asari should have a representative to go along with this STG team." Sparatus curtly nodded and Tevos smiled as Valern accepted the counter-proposal.

"Have your STG team ready to go within the hour."

_9 Sep 3805, Hercules System, Eletania_

The Third Class Petty (PO3) officer manning the passive sensor scope, Drew Kocher, started in alarm before calling out towards the bridge.

"Sir! Something just entered the system and dropped off the scope. I couldn't tell, but from the emissions it looked like a ship, similar energy profile to those ones that attacked a few days ago, not one of ours!" John Shepard cursed under his breath and quickly made his way to the man.

"Ok, tell me what you've got."

"Well sir, it matches the energy readings given off by the thrusters of those alien ships that attacked the fleet earlier. It stays steady for about five seconds, then spikes and disappears. I don't know where they went. I am not getting any reading on the passive tachyon sensors." John swore before ushering the man out of his seat and accessing the vast data base of the ship. Shepard didn't stepping in for the man, but it would be quicker this way, and time was of the essence. He selected the recording of the energy signatures of the brutal battle before playing it through in its entirety. Upon its conclusion, he rewound it again to ten seconds before the conclusion of the battle and felt his mouth go dry. Apparently Petty Officer Kocher had figured it out too, as his face turned white.

"For some reason their FTL doesn't emit tachyons. We have to get them on active sensors to track them. All that we can detect when they punch FTL is that," he pointed to the screen, "energy spike. PRESSLY! General quarters! We have some unwanted visitors in the system! Let the Retaliator know too, I don't know how good the opfor sensors are, so only line of sight laser comms. Everything that isn't needed or doesn't immediately power back up gets turned off. Get the mechs ready for possible deployment if they land." _God please let them go away, or at least land. We can't do anything against ortillery if they find us._

"Right away, sir!"

John walked to his _Myrmidon_ and began ascending the ladder to the cockpit. All they could do now was to sit, wait, and pray. _God I hate waiting._

_9 Sep 3805, Hercules System, Nadir Jump Point_

"Looks like the Batarians weren't lying. They got torn up out here," Captain Kirrahe remarked to nobody in particular. In front of him was the remnant of a battle which took place several days before.

"I would feel a little more sympathy if their law breaking wasn't the reason behind the slaughter. They got exactly what they deserved," remarked the Turian behind him. Kirrahe's mouth was set in a thin line of disapproval at the statement. Trust a Turian Spectre to voice an opinion like that. Still, it could be worse. They had almost ended up with Saren. Within minutes, Sparatus had requested his presence, but he was out in the Terminus Systems rooting out a spy ring attempting to steal Hierarchy military secrets. Kirrahe knew Saren's file, and was aware that any potential first contact would be decidedly detrimental to the relationship of this new race and the council. That may have been why Tevos immediately put fourth Matriarch Aethyta as the Asari representative upon learning of Saren's tentative spot on the investigative team. The Asari had a reputation of remaining calm under pressure, but staying unfazed if bullets started flying. Luckily, a relatively new Spectre, Nihlus Kryik had received the billet, and Kirrahe had been relatively pleased with the results. He was still too much of a hard-ass, but he was a Turian, so that went without saying.

"I find it very unlikely that a race advanced enough to do something like that has not been discovered yet," the Aethyta remarked, motioning at the cruiser which had a decent sized corner sliced neatly off. Kirrahe frowned. He knew that none of the other Council races had taken the STG's latest find seriously. Hell, he had a hard time himself. But hard data doesn't lie. It was Nihlus that responded.

"I hardly understand why we are here. If you are a new race on the galactic stage and are suddenly attacked, then why would you bother staying in the location you were just ambushed in? It makes no sense. The Batarians said that none of the ships tried to go to FTL to run away, but we can't detect anything on sensors and a non-FTL ship could not have gone that far without a relay, and we know that no other ships have used the relay since the battle. These aliens did not have energy emissions consistent with mass effect powered vessels, or even basic shields. Still, they are not here, therefore they have to have FTL, and they are probably still going through debriefs on whatever world they came from. If they did come back, it would be in force, but why bother? It isn't like they have any steak in this backwater system." At this point, Kirrahe's eccentric teammate spoke up.

"Assumption. Why not come back? Possible that they would come back for bodies of dead crew, remains of ship which were destroyed. Unknown. Shortsighted to make such assumptions." Kirahee inwardly sighed in exasperation, sometimes his poor sensor officer just didn't know when to shut up.

"First lieutenant Solus, please mind what you say around our guests." Mordin took the criticism with grace and nodded.

"Understood, will not voice opinion further."

"That isn't what I said. If you figure out where they may have gone, feel free to say something, but otherwise, keep it to yourself." The brilliant Salarian simply went back to his sensors, the others in the room _almost_ able to hear the gears grinding in his head. The matriarch spoke next.

"Is the wreckage of the alien vessel still here?" Mordin was able to respond to the query, and did.

"Unusual. Scanners picking up debris, but small quantities. Also, large amounts of exotic matter. Given volume of non-Batarian wreckage would only put alien vessel at only fraction of actual length, clearly not the case when highly censored replay tapes provided by Batarians are viewed. Possible that enemy fleet targeted ship remains to deny technological information to scavengers. Single fighter craft destroyed also missing, though high volume GARDIAN fire is likely culprit-wait! Object floating in space, organic matter, approximately two meters long. Suggest intercept and retrieval."

The Salarian pilot moved closer to the object and opened the cargo bay doors, allowing a crewmember in an EVA suit to retrieve it.

"Captain Kirrahe, it looks like part of a body. I don't recognize the species, but it looks similar to an Asari." Kirrahe wrinkled his brow and thought some before replying.

"Hmmm, very well. Let's check the area for any other bodies. It looks like these Asari-look-alikes didn't check their wreckage thoroughly. Also, retrieve what is left of this ship for research."

_12 Sep 3805, Hercules System, Eletania_

John Shepard approached the sensor console, leaning over Petty Officer Kocher's shoulder.

"Any updates?"

"Not a thing sir. That ship is still sitting in space near the nadir point. It buzzed around the system a bit, but went below the horizon so I couldn't get readings on where it went to. Luckily we are facing that construct outside of the last planet and the day length is really long. If your theory about the alien tech is right and it is some type of transport, we should see any ship jumping in system for the next fifteen hours or so." Just then, the sensor started wailing at them.

"Speak of the devils… it looks like the enemy cavalry just entered the system."

_12 Sep 3805, Hercules System, Mass Relay_

The communications officer turned to his captain to announce the comm request.

"Admiral, a Salarian frigate is opening comms with us. It seems to be located near the location of the previous battle." Admiral Vey'Hok grumbled and nodded, standing in front of the holocam. A Turian in medium armor, an Asari matriarch, and an armored Salarian appeared on the display. The Asari spoke first.

"Captain, would you care to explain why you just arrived in this system with an entire fleet? The council explained very clearly that the Batarians are not authorized to colonize Eletania."

"We are not here to colonize any planet, _Asari_. We are simply conducting scientific research about the garden planet in the system." The Salarian scoffed.

"You are "conducting research" with the Sword of the Hegemony fleet? It is well known to the Salarian Union that you are the Commander the Sword Fleet. Please, Captain. Do not take us for fools. You do not have a single scientific scanner among your entire fleet."

"The _Beautiful Annihilation_-"

"Is a standard cruiser. This is a STG frigate, Captain. We already preformed a scan on every ship in your fleet. With me are Spectre Kryik and Matriarch Aethyta, on direct orders from the council due to the event your government petitioned them about. There are no more of the aliens in this system, we even recovered all the debris from the ship that was destroyed. If you are looking for a fight, you are going to be sorely disappointed."

"I am here because I received orders to land a detachment of troops and researchers to conduct surveys on the surface of Eletaria. That is not illegal, and the Council has no right to deny this to the Batarian Hegemony. We are moving into orbit now. Good bye, representatives." With that, Vey'Hok cut the communication. He was livid that the council thought they could continuously poke their noses wherever they pleased. Hok had been truthful with the Salarian. He had been ordered to land troops on Eletania to conduct research… to determine how suitable the planet was for colonization… and build three ground based mass accelerator cannons to secure the colony from any more alien or council incursions. That may be impossible with the STG frigate breathing down his neck, but he would at least get those damn samples. The Admiral snapped and pointed at his navigator.

"You. Have the fleet engage mass effect cores. Drop out of FTL in high orbit 1000km over Eletania. Lower the orbit to 250km from there. I don't want anybody flying into the planet because they don't have a clue how to drop out of a FTL jump precisely."

_12 Sep 3805, Hercules System, Nadir Jump Point_

"Sir, the Batarian Fleet just entered FTL moving towards Eletania."

"Follow them, but give them plenty of distance. Park us in a geosynchronous orbit over their landing site."

_12 Sep 3805, Hercules System, Eletania_

John Shepard pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration.

"Where are they, Petty Officer?"

"Just dropped out of FTL in orbit. I can clearly get a bead on 88 contacts in formation, and another contact trailing the formation with a slightly different energy signature."

"Well, shit. This is what I was afraid of. Get the MechWarriors up and alert. I hope we don't have to deploy them, but if we do, we aren't going down without a fight. Have everything on a short list to go hot. If they get within 20 clicks, I want mechs powered up fully and fighters and the Retaliator ready to launch. Do not launch any air cover until I give the command. Leave the camo netting on." Shepard knew that getting the mech's fusion reactors warmed up for a fast start would increase their signature very slightly, but hoped it wouldn't send any tells to the fleet. Human scanners only had a 10% chance to catch a pre-heated mech in a cargo bay in low orbit, but he didn't know about these aliens.

_12 Sep 3805, Hercules System, 742km over Eletania_

"Faint energy signature directly below us, Captain!" Mordin's quick, clipped voice startled the others on the bridge out of their thoughts.

"Bring up a visual, Lieutenant Solus." The eccentric Salarian nodded, and a large holo appeared on screen, showing an enhanced visual image of the surface. Aethyta focused on the image but shook her head.

"I can't see anything." The Turian had a predatory look as he pointed.

"There. Zoom in further, Lieutenant." The image shifted and zoomed in further to a 1:20 ratio.

"Camouflage netting. And natural cover. Very clever. You can even see the scorched earth around the landing zone from their touchdown. Still, it doesn't look like the Batarians noticed anything." The Asari looked on, confused.

"I don't understand. Why would they even risk giving away their position when an entire fleet is directly above them?" Captain Kirrahe had a twisted smile on his face.

"They probably just turned some things on the Batarians won't like very much if they come closer. Solus, be sure to record this."

_14 Sep 3805, Hercules System, Nadir Jump Point_

The aliens had set down approximately 300 km from the _Hard Boiled._ Shepard left all of his forces at alert for four hours, but had ordered them to hot bunk in order to get rest after the aliens had not come charging towards them. Instead, the fleet had spread out over the planet to completely cover's its surface in sensors. Curiously, the contact that had been separate from the fleet was now in geosynchronous orbit directly overhead. He even had the _Hard Boiled_ slowly turn its enhanced optics towards the target during nighttime, and saw this ship looked vastly different than the ones making up the fleet. While he could easily feel sick on his stomach looking at any other ship visible above the horizon, this one looked much more organic and flowing. It appeared as if somebody had taken a curved line tool and designed a ship with it; having a long, narrow body with two separate subsections running parallel to the main hull. It was aesthetically pleasing, in its own way. The fact that it hung in space gave him a sneaking suspicion that it knew where he was. If that was the case however, why would it not alert the rest of the fleet to his presence?

"Sir, I have some vehicles moving this direction. They are still about 100km out, but it will only be about two hours before they get within 20km of our position." Shepard thanked PO3 Kocher before relaying his orders.

"Give the crew 30 more minutes of rest and then wake everybody up. If they accelerate or put up fighter or recon screens, notify everybody immediately. I am going to get dressed. If shit hits the fan, and we start taking casualties, get the _Hard Boiled _up and away, along with the Retaliator. MAD through atmosphere and keep going. Hopefully you can outrun them and they don't have anything that can hit you in FTL. The Mechs and fighters will have to fight it out. I am going to go get dressed." With that, he walked to his quarters and stripped out of his coal grey fatigues. John put on a pair of cargo shorts and donned his cooling vest, designed to keep him from being baked alive in the extreme temperatures of a mech cockpit. Finally, he slipped his belt holster on and inserted his M3777 pistol before moving quickly to the cargo bay. John looked up at his _Myrmidon_, a smile crossing his features as he climbed up the ladder into the cockpit. Once inside, he sealed the cockpit and retracted the ladder. John ran through a checklist, making sure everything was in order to make a quick power up, ending with the ejection seat and its built in weapon storage compartment. Finally, he donned the neurohelmet and brought up the tactical map. It showed twenty fairly strong contact signatures pushing through the jungle his way at a constant 40km/h.

John knew that if he was forced to engage, he was likely going to die. The temptation to just have the _Hard Boiled_ make an emergency dash to deep space was ever present, but likely futile. It would likely take the dropship 10 seconds to get to full power and then another 15 seconds to fully engage the MAD in atmosphere, during which time they would be a stationary target visible on just about any sensor. At least if he went out fighting with his mech and fighters, there was a chance the orbiting fleet would be distracted while the dropship made a break for uncharted territory. There was always the chance that the vehicles would turn away and they could just pretend to not exist. All he could do was wait.

_14 Sep 3805, Hercules System, Eletania_

Sub-lieutenant Hahk Goran was incredibly bored. He didn't like the fact that his fleet, the Sword of the Hegemony, had been pulled from an exciting (and rather safe) tour of raiding outlying colonies and small Terminus worlds. Just two weeks ago they had hit some corporate world at the behest of Batarian State Arms. Some upstarts had decided to form a new arms corporation that was cutting into BSA profits. Those aspiring entrepreneurs and their manufacturing complex on a remote inhospitable world were now burning husks or barren craters. It had been amusing to watch the pathetic infantry security force try to destroy his armored Taharak combat vehicle with small arms fire before cutting them down. The looting, the pillaging, and finally the Asari he had briefly taken prisoner all added to that raid's… memorability. He had netted a few thousand credits worth of loot by the end of it all, and highly doubted he would get as much as a single credit from this drop. His radar tech cursed under his breath, and he turned to him.

"What is it?"

"Getting some kind of static on the scope sir, I can't see anything. Old garbage is probably just showing its age." Goran yawned before replying.

"It's nothing. Just get it working again. I don't want the Steel Fist pissed at us for breaking something else again." He flexed his shoulder, remembering the flogging he had received the last time he brought in a damaged Taharak during a non-combat exercise.

He sighed and turned back to his viewing window just in time to see a dozen beams of light converge on his Taharak, and he knew no more.

_14 Sep 3805, Hercules System, Eletania_

"I think we got their attention." John's second in command, Captain Edward Raven, stated. Shepard had a good chuckle at that. Ed had attended OCS with Shepard, and the two actually had shared a room through the entire experience.

Attached to the _Hard Boiled_ was Zulu company of the 201st Stryker Regiment, one of the Systems Alliance's eight mech regiments. Zulu company was very light, and designed to be the fastest element of the fast moving regiment. While such a light force would likely be crushed by a heavier force in an open area, in a dense jungle it was another story. The high mobility of the light, medium, and heavy mechs allowed for classic hit and run or ambush style tactics. Their opening salvo had taken out seven of the twenty tracked tank-like vehicles. He looked at his HUD and saw he was facing east.

"Okay, stay mobile. Keep ECM active on at least one mech in each lance. Alpha lance on me, we are flanking south. Bravo lance with us. We are setting up a firing line 1000m to the south; I think I saw a ravine that way when we were coming in to land. Charlie lance, flank wide and north. Don't get seen. We are going to draw them in and trap their armor in a kill box when they enter that gulley." Silently, John was very thankful. The _Hard Boiled _was 18km to their west. As soon as the recon company had exited the dropship to intercept the enemy armor, they had entered what had to be an ancient rainforest with canopies 30m high that blocked most of the light coming down. It would do a decent job hiding them from visual scans from orbit, and make scans more difficult for vehicles without IR imaging.

John led alpha and bravo lances around the right flank of the enemy, ordering the two lances to take pot shots as they moved. Predictably, the tracked vehicles followed the mechs. The recon company quickly moved down the embankment and up the opposite hill, hiding just below the ridge. John switched to magscan sensors, which gave rough positions of objects which gave off magnetic fields. As soon as the tanks hit the far side of the 700m wide ravine, he toggled his comm link.

"Charlie lance, advance quickly. We want to end this here. No prisoners." He counted to three and advanced the throttle held in his left hand slightly. As soon as he crested the hill, John dropped his crosshairs over the leading tank climbing the hill he was standing on, approximately 400 meters away. He pulled the trigger on his right stick, and a loud electric discharge was audible from the capacitors of his gauss rifle. It was on course for the first tank, but that same blue barrier which had protected the warships flared to life. Shepard's mech then took a hit from one of the tanks, then another. His _Myrmidon_ staggered back half a step before he depressed the four other weapon buttons on his right stick in rapid succession, and was rewarded with four emerald beams striking the lead mech in quick succession. The pulse lasers generated a large amount of heat, and the cockpit temperature skyrocketed. John began sweating profusely and saw the cockpit temperature had climbed to 80 degrees Celsius. The rest of alpha and bravo lances were already on line and pouring fire into the tracked vehicles, quickly racking up a sizeable kill count. One of the tracked vehicles fired a shot at a medium mech off to John's right before reversing. The hypersonic round slammed into the armored head of an _Enforcer V_, decapitating the mech and killing the pilot before he could react. The _Enforcer V _teetered on its feet before falling on its back heavily, shaking the ground. John triggered two flights of 20 medium range missiles (MRMs) with two buttons on his throttle before advancing towards the enemy at an oblique. Dirt kicked up in the explosions that didn't find an enemy tank. Most of the missiles that did find their mark exploded ineffectually on the tank's barrier before it collapsed. The remaining ten MRMs that struck the vehicle tore the turret off in a large orange-red fireball.

The commander of the tank forces in the gully seemed to get the hint that he was in a bad place, and one by one all of the alien tanks went into full reverse, trying to climb the far hill on the gulley to get out of the death trap while blasting away at Zulu company with inaccurate fire. The tanks had just made it to the bottom of the gulley and had just started to climb the opposite hill when charlie lance emerged. Only seven tanks were alive, and they were quickly picked apart. The whole engagement had taken under 40 seconds.

"We will have to leave GySgt Charleston and his mech here. We don't have time to get him. Everybody, double time to the south. Let's try to lose them in the dense jungle. We will have to move quickl-" John was cut off as everything turned into blinding light and noise. The ground shook violently, and then Shepard and his _Myrmidon _went flying 50 meters through the air and out of the ravine he had been standing in. His mech landed jarringly on its right side and the intense light continued. John Shepard sat dumbfounded for what seemed like hours but was in reality only ten seconds as the barrage continued. It was as if an angry god had decided to destroy the area Zulu company had been occupying. When it was over, he tried to sit his mech up, only to discover that one leg was snapped off at the knee and the other wasn't responding to his controls. He toggled his transmitter instead.

"Zulu company, this is Zulu six, give me a roll call." The line gave no response. John didn't know if his transmitter had been destroyed, and decided to try to rally his forces by foot. If he was lucky, some of the mechs were still functional and could be used to evacuate the wounded before they were swamped with infantry or more vehicles. He unlatched from the ejection seat and toggled the seat safety before rummaging through the storage compartment. He grabbed the survival kit, vibroknife, water purifier, flares, extra ammunition, woodland fatigues, and his M72 Infantry Gauss rifle before opening the emergency hatch on the ceiling of his cockpit. He pulled himself out of the crippled mech and caught his bearings. Everything around him was scorched and it looked like a miniature nuclear blast had gone off. He saw Ed's _Lightningbolt_ on its back about 100 yards away and half ran-half stumbled over to it.

John climbed atop the mech and frantically beat on the reinforced polymer cockit before he heard a grunt from inside. The escape hatch popped open, and Ed crawled out of his mech. Ed was considered by the unit to be very attractive and a bit of a lady's man, but the person that emerged from the sixty ton machine had a face and legs covered in blood, and one of his shins was offset at an odd angle. John slung the rifle over his shoulder and moved to assist his friend. Just as he knelt down, he heard a vehicle in the distance. _Damn!_ He grabbed his company XO and threw him over his shoulder in a fireman carry before jumping down from the mech. Pain shot up through his leg from the extra weight, but Shepard ignored it. He ran as fast as he possibly could away from the noise, the destruction, and potentially the rest of the members of his command.

Time was moving slowly for John. Each step seemed to take an eternity, but he kept running. Captain Raven had fallen unconscious. Finally after what he judged to be three miles, John set his burden down and rummaged through the rucksack, retrieving his survival radio. He held it to his mouth and spoke quickly and quietly.

"Joker! It is Captain Shepard. We got hit with ortillery or something nuclear. Get the hell out of there. Take the fighters with you if they haven't deployed yet."

"Sir, what is your position? I can pick you up while they provide cover or something!"

"Go, Lieutenant. That's an order."

"I-yes, sir."

Thirty seconds later John heard a rumble in the distance and was able to see through the mostly destroyed jungle canopy as the _Hard Boiled_ lifted off from the planet, the Retaliator flying in a loose formation slightly behind and to the right. The light around the dropship seemed to bend and it quickly began picking up speed. A second ortillery barrage began arcing towards the ship, but the space-time distortion surrounding the rounded vessel caused the burning contrails to appear to bend around the craft and miss. They slammed into the ground, and John saw the tops of mushroom clouds through the canopy and heard the distant roar of explosions. In a last act of defiance, the Retaliator released all four of its Sunburn torpedoes before activating its own MAD. John was amazed the bomber wasn't blown out of the sky for its effort. Both ships disappeared rapidly into the sky. John was happy that the two ships had exited the atmosphere successfully, and hoped they would be able to escape unscathed. The sound of the vehicles off in the distance got him moving again.

The _Hard Boiled_ and the four Gladiuses may yet survive, but John wasn't so sure about himself, the still figure at his feet, and the rest of Zulu company.

_A/N: First off, I would like to thank everybody that followed, favorited, and reviewed this story. You guys are the reason I was so motivated to get chapter 2 out so quickly. Please leave a review if you have some criticism to offer, or to tell me what I am doing right and what you want to see more of. Both are very valuable and will be taken into consideration as to how I write future chapters. As for this chapter… wow, that got long really quickly! I wrote the setup for the battle and by the time it had started, I was already over 4k words! As I stated last chapter in the note, expect anywhere from 4-8k word chapters in the future. I will try to get updates out every week, but don't blow up my inbox with angry messages if it takes me two weeks for an update. When I do post new chapters, I will try to do so on a Friday/Saturday. Blame the US Navy and write them angry letters if the update speed is not to your liking. On a side note; I have been trying to find an image that comes close to what I envisioned the Batarian ships in this fic to look like. Nothing I have found quite matches. Apparently people that draw or render these ships don't like making hideous looking ships made of boxes and semi-domes with antennae sticking out of them everywhere. Up next: John gets to go camping among other things. _

_CODEX:_

_Human Ranks_

_Marine_

_Enlisted: Recruit, Recruit 1__st__ class, Corporal, Lance Corporal/Technician Recruit, Sergeant/Technician Assistant, Staff Sergeant/Technician, Gunnery Sergeant/Senior Technician, Master Sergeant, Ground Warfare Warrant Officer_

_Officer: Second Lieutenant, First Lieutenant, Captain, Major, Lieutenant Colonel, Colonel, Marshal, Field Marshal, High Marshal_

_Navy_

_Enlisted: Recruit Yeoman, Apprentice Yeoman, Yeoman, Petty Officer 3__rd__ class, Petty officer 2__nd__ class, Petty officer 1__st__ class, Chief Petty Officer, Senior Chief Petty Officer, Naval Warfare Warrant Officer_

_Officer: Ensign, Lieutenant Junior Grade, Lieutenant, Lieutenant Commander, Commander, Captain, Rear Admiral (Lower Half), Vice Admiral, Admiral, Fleet Admiral, High Marshal_

_Batarian Ranks: Plebe, Grunt, Warrior, Sub-Lieutenant, Iron Fist, Captain, Admiral_

_Taharak Heavy Tank: The Taharak is the primary tank used by the Batarian Hegemony. It is 12m long, and has two main mass accelerator cannons on a turret and two secondary smaller mass accelerators attached to either side of the vehicle. A single anti-personnel repeating machine gun is also mounted facing forward._ ***I envisioned the Taharak to look very similarly to the Sicaran Battle Tank in the Warhammer 40k universe***

_Salarian Ship Design: _**Salarian ships in this fanfiction will be OC due to the lack of their appearance in the actual ME universe. I have heard a rumor that concept art was released by Bioware in an artbook that I apparently do not own, and a google search was not very helpful in the matter either. That said, here are the specs for the Salarian ship that has been mentioned thus far in KoES**

_Subtlety Class Frigate: A Salarian Subtlety class frigate is 200m long, Masses 185,000 tons, and has a crew of 84. It is designed primarily to gather information, and has significantly lower emissions than other vessels of comparable size. It has a spinal mass accelerator and two broadside mass accelerators on both the port and starboard sides of the vessel._

_i dot imgur dot com /8l6nKKA dot png_

_From left to right (not to scale for the purposes of this story): Dreadnaught, Cruiser, Subtlety class STG frigate, heavy frigate, shuttle_

_Mech Classes: Battlemechs are divided into four classes, light, medium, heavy, and assault. Light mechs mass 20-35tons, medium mechs mass 40-55 tons, heavy mechs mass 60-75 tons, and assault mechs mass 80-100 tons. Generally, the heavier the mech, the higher the armor and firepower it carries, at the cost of reduced speed. There are outliers to this general rule. The fastest light mechs can sprint over 200km/h and the slower mechs travel at a more sedate 50km/h._

_ECM: Electronic Countermeasure Suites disrupt electronic signals, including sensors and communications. This allows the user and nearby allied mechs to hide from enemies and disrupt communications. Alternatively, an ECM can also be used to detect enemy emissions at a longer range than a standard sensor suite could, or assist in finding hidden targets._

_Magscan: One of the sensor types onboard a Battlemech sensor suite. Magscan picks up magnetic signatures near the scanner, which can be useful in finding hidden targets. Magscan can be unreliable and areas such as mountainous regions confuse the scanner and highly reduce its effectiveness._

_Mech Sensor Suite: The types of sensors available to a battlemech include: visual, infrared (IR), radar, ultraviolet (UV), magscan, and occasionally sonar._


	3. Chapter 3

_Preface (PLEASE READ)_

_Before I start this chapter, I wanted to say that it has been made apparent that I did not make it clear to the readers that there is a Battletech wiki! I can't post URLs on fanfiction, but the Battletech wiki is sarna dot net. I highly encourage you to read the author's notes and check the wiki for anything you do not understand. Not only does it have useful information, I also included imgur links to the way I envisioned some of the ships and vehicles of the KoES universe looking. If you have any questions, feel free to send me a PM and I will try to clarify whatever questions you may have!_

_14 Sep 3805, Hercules System, 250 km over Eletania_

Admiral Vey'Hok was staring into the eyes of three very angry individuals on the holo-display. In the heat of the moment, he had forgotten about the STG vessel observing the battle in a higher orbit above the planet. It was the Asari matriarch that spoke first.

"Admiral, I do not think that you understand the repercussions of your actions. Mass accelerator strikes against a garden world are _highly_ illegal. We have already sent recordings of your orbital strike to the council. You cannot bury this action. What were you thinking?" Hok frowned. He briefly contemplated simply destroying the Salarian vessel. If they had already transmitted the tapes, then that action would likely only make things worse.

"I had no choice in the matter. These unknown aliens had machines the likes of which I have never heard of. They were all congregated in one area, and a mass accelerator strike was the best way to deal with the threat."

"An _illegal_ mass accelerator strike," the Turian Spectre replied. "I am tempted to arrest you and drag your pathetic hide back to the Citadel right now for your inevitable war crime trial." The Batarian shrugged off the threat.

"Yes, yes. I will take the relay to the Widow System after this research operation is complete." The admiral cut the transmission before he could get a response. He had no intention of going to the Citadel. The Council and their lackeys had no idea what they were doing, and most of Council law was ridiculous and went against the Batarian's culture. If they were going to arrest him, they would need to go through the Hegemony's finest fleet first. Hok was feeling angry; angry at the council, angry at these aliens, and angry at the mechanized battalion for losing half of their vehicles before he was forced to clean up their mess with an illegal orbital artillery strike. At least he could do something about the latter. Nothing compared with swift justice from a ranking officer in the Hegemony military.

Hok looked over at his personal shuttle operator.

"Get the shuttle ready. I need to put the fear of the spirits into what is left of that battalion."

_17 Sep 3805, Hercules System, Eletania_

Shepard looked through the optics of his M72 and saw a unit of aliens making camp for the night. It appeared to be about the size of a reinforced armored company, or about 200 soldiers and 15 tanks. The unit markings of the tanks matched those which he had ambushed with Zulu company, and he was able to see several dozen injured aliens laying on levitating beds that were being guided to what he assumed was a medical tent. He was located on a hillside approximately 8 kilometers from the hostile campsite.

The past three days had been an endless blur of slow movement and periods of intense stress as patrols marched past their position. In any other situation John would have said he was bored with the pace he had been moving at. After a mad dash to put distance between Ed and himself from their pursuers, he had found a natural cave. John and Ed had set up inside the cave to get out of the sudden and intense storms which seemed to plague the planet. After making a small camp and tending to Ed's wounds as best he could with a makeshift splint of a branch and rope, Shepard went back to try to recover more supplies from the mechs under the cover of nightfall. It had taken an hour to slowly crawl under 200 meters past the sentries guarding the wreckage, silently cursing everything the entire time. He was able to reach an older _Rifleman V_ mech and had extracted its dead pilot along with a Mauser laser rifle, Needler flechette pistol, some food, and more desperately needed medical supplies. Unfortunately he was unable to scavenge more, as every other mech had at least a platoon's worth of alien infantry guarding it. John saw the aliens dragging two bodies out of their mechs, laughing. Was forced to crawl away towards his camp, feeling defeated. After three hours of scathing self-reflection he had arrived on the hill he was currently laying prone on. John set about the task of burying the Sergeant he had been dragging along. It was painfully long and sobering work. As he was about to turn to finish his trek to check on his wounded friend, a shuttle descended into the enemy camp.

_18 Sep 3805, Terra II and Shanxi_

Across Terra II and Shanxi, all vid and radio broadcasts were interrupted with the image of an attractive reporter of Asian descent looking out at them.

"This is Emily Wong with the Alliance News Network coming to you with breaking news from Alliance High Command. Nearly two weeks ago the Fourth Fleet was investigating a strange signal spinward of Shanxi when it came under attack by extraterrestrial forces. The Fourth Fleet was able to defeat the alien fleet before escaping to safety. One live alien was captured and is being held in an undisclosed location off planet. The Second fleet assigned to protecting Shanxi is already on their way back to the Hercules System, where it is reported that a dropship had to be left due to damage to its parent ship's docking port. One research vessel and one fighter were destroyed in the exchange. The identities of those aboard the ship left in the system and killed aboard the research ship and in the fighter are unknown, but relief is rapidly approaching the system to bring our service members home safely."

_18 Sep 3805, Hercules System, Eletania_

John watched the shuttle land and what was likely an honor guard march out down a ramp. The alien company had quickly formed into some sort of formation, and brought their hands across their chests in salute as a figure stepped out. The alien was wearing some sort of cloth uniform with an almost comical number of ribbons sewn all across its front left side. It almost looked like the uniform of one of Earth's 19th century dictators. He looked at his chronometer, showing it was just after midnight on planet. John depressed a button on his optics, which laser ranged the distance to another hill about 4km closer to the enemy base. He remained prone; slinging his rifle across his back next to the Laser rifle he had found and began to crawl forward.

Thirty minutes later, John arrived at the top of the other hill. He was surprised to see that the alien doing what he assumed was some sort of inspection of the unit, and the leader did not appear to be pleased. He carried a metal rod which he used to beat soldiers that failed to deliver whatever answers he was looking for.

John Shepard had grown up in one of the few rural areas of Terra II, on an island approximately 50 square miles. His father was a farmer, and John had helped the small community by hunting the local Jendo, an animal which looked somewhat like a gazelle/ram hybrid when he was not working on the farm. Upon joining the Alliance, he had opted for Special Forces training in addition to mechanized warfare, and held the designation of N7. The N7 were highly trained and the unit was designed to operate behind enemy lines and primarily used to gather information or assassinate high profile targets. The original purpose for the unit was to find and eliminate the pirates on Terra II that attacked oceangoing supply or trade ships. John managed to get a rare command billet in a mech company and had only served in a N7 unit for his first two years in the Alliance. Between his time hunting and the training he had received, Shepard was a highly capable marksman with long range rifles and pistols.

John looked through his scope and set the magnification to 18X before using the laser range finder to determine the distance to the enemy commander. 5,121 meters. His M72 had an effective range of 9km, but anything outside 4.5km was a very difficult shot. John deployed his bipod to steady the rifle, and observed the surroundings around the enemy commander. The trees rustled a bit, but he was not able to accurately determine the speed of the wind. He adjusted the focus of his optics a quarter turn counter clockwise to see the mirage. Luckily, the tropical planet was still very warm even at night, and he approximated ten miles an hour of wind moving to his right. He applied four left minutes of angle and seven and a half minutes of angle up to his optics and slid the bolt mechanism directly back before pushing it forward again. A four inch long metal sabot was pushed forward into the chamber of the rifle from the magazine. John adjusted himself one last time and set his cheek on the stock of the rifle.

_18 Sep 3805, Hercules System, Eletania_

Admiral Hok inwardly smiled to himself. He had successfully scared the shit out of the unit for losing so many tanks to the enemy force. Now he just had to deal with their commander, Captain Xel. Xel was a very capable officer, and while Hok knew the Captain was not directly at fault, the ultimate responsibility of the unit fell on him. And Xel's subordinates had failed. Miserably. It would show weakness to not punish him in front of his unit. Hok stood in front of his target wordlessly and raised the rod to strike the man. Suddenly, he was on his back looking up at the sky. _That's strange. _The thought occurred to him that one of the troops had attacked him to prevent their commander from being disciplined, but he couldn't even feel anything. Also, his guards had not fired a round, but it was difficult to tell as his hearing was distant and fuzzy. It almost sounded like somebody was screaming, but the voice seemed so very far away. He tried to move to sit up, but found that he could not. One of his guards appeared over him, and tried to move him before the guard's head jerked back. Orange brain matter squirted from the Batarian, and the dead man fell over, only the lower jaw was left of the Batarian. His body had shifted slightly as the dead guard fell on him, and he was able to see down at his chest. A two inch wide hole slightly offset to the right stared back at him. Movement caught his attention, and he was able to see Xel writhing on the ground, his right leg missing from the thigh up. Xel was the one screaming if his face was anything to go by, but he sounded at least a few hundred yards away instead of right beside him. The Admiral looked once again at the hole in his chest and could see blood spilling from the hole. Admiral Hok's eyes went wide at the sight before he relaxed a final time and knew no more.

_30 Sep 3805, Hercules System, Eletania_

Killing that alien may have been a mistake. Ed and John were moving yet again, and it seemed the whole damn enemy fleet was looking for them. John's XO was laid over his shoulder and had his teeth gritted in pain. Shepard knew Ed must be miserable having his leg bounced around with his steps, but there wasn't an alternative. An alien fighter roared overhead, and John dropped to his knee before pausing, relieved when it did not turn back around. He had no idea how much longer he and Ed could continue like this. It took a great amount of energy to carry the man, and they would run out of food within a week or two. John noticed a hollowed out tree trunk, and made his way to it. He set Ed down gingerly and took out his command tool, a matte black object comparable in size and shape to a brick. The tool flared to life, projecting a hologram of the surface of the planet that showed his location. John and Ed had trekked nearly 450 kilometers from the battle site, mostly in the past two weeks. He could scarcely believe that they were still alive after everything. John had deployed timed explosives set to touch off in the opposite direction that the pair was moving. Shepard had no idea if it had worked to draw enemies away from them or not. He changed to his transmit tab, and saw that no new Alliance contacts were within the transmitter's 400km range. Ed grimaced in pain and looked over at him.

"Jesus John, you could be a little gentler. Maybe you need me to crack you over the shin with something to see how it feels."

"I'm sorry princess. It would help if you weren't hiding bricks in your pockets. Maybe you would have liked me to leave you in your mech. I am sure these friendly people that have been looking for us have actually wanted to give us a steak dinner." Ed chuckled weakly.

"You know, I would have left you a week ago if they were giving out steak. I think you pissed them off when you killed that one alien."

"Yeah, I think you're right. I may have killed three; but definitely two. I don't know. The first sabot went through the boss' chest and hit another guy he was about to work over with a metal pole. Took half his leg off. I went to make a follow up shot on the other guy to put him out of his misery but somebody stepped in front of him at the last second and may have deflected the shot. Hit some poor guard trying to reach the first target."

"Fuck his misery, man. I can't even move around without my leg feeling like it will fall off. And the bastards killed the whole rest of the company. I hope nobody else was alive when they got to our mechs." Shepard unhooked his canteen and took a drink of water before offering it to his friend. The last comment cut him deeply as he thought of the laughter of the aliens as they had drug his dead companions out of their mechs.

"Me too, Ed."

_15 Oct 3805, Hercules System, 742 km over Eletania_

Kirrahe was still amazed that anything had survived the mass accelerator strike the Batarians had used on the planet below him. He was unsure if it had been a mistake in letting the two alien craft leave the system unsupervised as a dozen Batarian cruisers and frigates gave chase. Ultimately, he had assumed that the Batarians would bring back any crew they captured and he could observe them from there. It had been a good decision, as they had returned in system a few hours ago with the large oval shaped ship attached to a cruiser. The smaller torpedo bomber was not present. Apparently the two craft had not succeeded in their escape. He had already radioed the new Batarian commander that the aliens were not to be killed or tortured, under penalty of very strict Citadel sanctions. While the Salarian could not truthfully know the repercussions of the Batarians killing all those aboard the ships, he figured the Council would not be lenient after everything the Batarians had done. The second surprise was when Admiral Hok was killed. He shook his head. Kirrahe watched the holo in front of him as an infantry carrier slowly advanced with a platoon of Batarian soldiers, looking for the sniper.

"Captain! High energy signatures at old battle site!"

_15 Oct 3805, Hercules System Nadir Jump Point_

Rear Admiral Hackett floated in space next to Vice Admiral Kahoku on the bridge of the battleship _Constellation. _The entire Second Fleet was in system, and they weren't alone. Hackett looked at the scope carefully. There were 89 non-human ships in the system. Forty six frigate class ships, thirty cruiser class ships, two massive battlecruiser class ships, and ten support craft were in a blockade orbit around the planet, 250km above the surface. A single frigate was in geosynchronous orbit high above the blockade, and the sensors showed that it had a slightly different energy output than the rest of the fleet. A more disturbing detail was that the aliens seemed to have captured the _Hard Boiled. _Well, the second fleet was outnumbered, like his Fourth Fleet was. Unlike before, however, the second fleet had some of the biggest hitting ships in the human arsenal. The second fleet consisted of 70 combat ships; two _McKenna II_ class battleships, four _Interdiction_ class carriers each housing four _Retaliator_ heavy bombers, six lances of _Gladius_ fighters, and three _Overlord III _class dropships. The fleet was rounded out with 24 _Lance _class cruisers, 36 _Trident_ class destroyers, and four _Packhorse_ class resupply and repair vessels. The Second fleet was a clone to the first fleet, and the best that humanity had to offer.

Hackett was not in command of the second fleet; that was Kahoku's position. He was simply here to advise the other admiral, as Hackett was the only commander to fight against these aliens. He had already briefed Kahoku extensively on what he had seen, and would likely remain a spectator for this battle. Kahoku placed his hands behind his back and relayed his orders to the comm officer.

"Order the fleet into attack formation. Deploy the fighter and bomber screens. We need to hit them before they have a chance to regroup. Try opening a communication to one of the larger ships." The second fleet began splitting into four distinct elements as they moved toward Eletania. Two larger units each containing 20 ships, including the _McKenna II's _were positioned above and below, while the flanking elements consisted of cruisers and destroyers. Each group also contained one carrier. Once in formation, the whole fleet MAD jumped to within 1000km of Eletania's South Pole. The lone frigate in high orbit immediately rabbited away, and scanners tracked it to a position of 100Mm from the planet.

"No response Captain, I don't know if they ignored the transmission or are unable to respond."

"Approach the planet in formation. Fighters and bombers are clear to engage. Prioritize one of their capital ships and try to disable the cruiser with our boys on it. Let's see if they want to become more talkative." As the human fleet approached the unprepared alien forces, Hackett knew that the battle was a foregone conclusion. The other forces weren't ready, and as the bombers reached their effective range, two dozen Sunburn torpedoes streaked out across space towards one of the alien's two larger ships. The targeted battleship class warship managed to swat over half of the torpedoes with a laser defense system before seven Sunburns found their mark. The results were gratifying. The fission warheads detonated, sending destroyer sized pieces of the starboard section of the warship tumbling off into space. The ship began listing and developed a rotation, clearly dead in space.

"Try opening another transmission. Have the _Retaliators_ hold fire on the other large warship." The bombers turned back, just as the clone of the destroyed ship opened fire on the formation off to the right. A slug streaked across space at nearly .05c, and impacted a destroyer neatly in the nose before tearing the front quarter of the ship off. Kahoku reacted immediately.

"Second fleet, weapons free! Get our mobile fleet units to the far side of the planet to engage! Turn broadside!" The _Constellation _and its sister ship slowly turned under power of its maneuvering thrusters to engage the fifty-off contacts in line of sight. Once in position, the _McKenna II _battleships let loose with their PPC barrage. Each ship had 12 gimbaled heavy capital class PPCs on all four sides. After firing one salvo, the ship rotated 90 degrees before firing another. The combat was chaotic. Slugs from the alien ships streaked across the void at Second fleet, and were answered by the lightning bolts of PPC fire, lasers, and missiles. By the time the _Constellation _was suffering from heat buildup from its third salvo, there were no more targets in range.

_15 Oct 3805, Eletania_

Ed was keeping watch as John slept. He had the M72 laid across his lap as he peered through the opening to their small shelter. It had been a rough month. Between evading the aliens, his broken leg, and the strict rationing of food that left him constantly hungry, the Lieutenant was beginning to wonder if it would be better to just eat a bullet. Ed gave a frustrated grumble and looked out into the jungle as large globs of water fell through the trees. _Does it ever stop raining here? _Then, the last thing he could imagine happened; the radio cracked to life.

"_Zulu six, this is Second Fleet. Respond." _Shepard had sprung up at the noise and snatched the radio.

"Second fleet, this is Zulu six. I am stranded on-planet with my XO. The rest of the company is either KIA or captured. Request pickup."

"_Roger Zulu six, we will send ground forces to your location to secure an evac. Sit tight._" John smiled and slapped Ed on the back. It hurt his leg, but Ed could not find it in himself to wince. They would be going home.

_15 Oct 3805, Hercules System, 200km over Eletania_

Kahoku and Hackett looked down at the planet. The battle was won, but the aliens had managed to take out four destroyers and a cruiser from the second fleet's mobile elements when they reappeared behind Eletania, as well as damage four other cruisers. The results for the second fleet were one battle won, at the cost of and 1232 injured and 2209 dead. Hackett could imagine how his counterpart was feeling. They were the only two commanders to lose men under their command against an alien force. Well, one of three. 12 _Overlord IIIs _were deorbiting to settle down on the planet, each holding a reinforced battalion containing 40 mechs along with with two lances of Gladius aerospace support, and other personnel. Lieutenants John Shepard and Edward Raven were being picked up from the planet and the remains of most of the mechs and bodies would be recovered as well. The alien ground forces had apparently run back to their dropships or scattered like ants from a kicked over anthill. The humans had intercepted nearly every transport trying to leave the surface. Most had been destroyed, but six had been captured due to the marksmanship of Gladius pilots, and their ability to disable the craft's engines. Thankfully, the _Hard Boiled _was retaken, but the bloodstained and bullet-pocked walls told the tale. Only three individuals were alive on the dropship by the time the marines had stormed aboard. The remainder of the 24 man crew and Gladius pilots had been killed attempting to repel boarders or had been executed upon capture. Of the alien fleet, only ten enemy ships had a chance to engage their jump drives, and two of them were intercepted after the human semi-AI cyberwarfare suites managed to disable their power systems. Not including that other frigate. It had remained stationary and well away from the battle, and Kahoku had allowed it to go unmolested thus far.

Recovery of the mechs and two stranded officers had taken four hours. The second fleet had deployed into a defensive cube formation in orbit, wary of more threats. A pair of cruisers had moved out towards the frigate and parked halfway between the two to deter any hostile moves on its part, if having an entire fleet in the system wasn't enough. Ed had immediately been moved to the medical bay in the artificial gravity section of the _Constellation _where he was admitted to surgery for his leg. John was not so lucky. He had time to shower and change into a set of unmarked coal grey fatigues before being escorted to Admiral Kahoku's cabin. He arrived at the door and knocked three times.

"Request permission to enter." A muffled force replied.

"Enter." The mechwarrior pressed the door entry button and marched in before coming to attention in front of a Vice Admiral he did not know and Rear Admiral Hackett. He saluted smartly. The two flag officers briefly returned his salute before sitting.

"Lieutenant John Shepard reporting as ordered, gentlemen."

"Stand at ease, Lieutenant." John complied and looked at the unknown Admiral. _Vice Admiral Kahoku. Don't know much about him._

"We need you to fill in the gaps, Lieutenant. Hackett ordered you to go to ground and we get back with an entire alien fleet in system. Your dropship had been captured; there was no trace of Zulu company. Tell us exactly what happened from the moment Fourth Fleet left."

It took John over an hour of talking to relay the events of the past month to the admirals. He left nothing out, and answered their questions respectfully and concisely. When he finished, Kahoku sighed before running his hands up his face and through his hair.

"It seems like you didn't make the best call in setting your command down on Eletania instead of another planet in the system. While it was blind luck that had these aliens touched down so close to you, the whole thing could have been prevented if you had avoided the planet."

"Sir, I thought that the natural foliage of the planet along with its weather and high temperatures would mask our presence better at the time. We also would have access to water if our supplies ran out before we were rescued. I did not have a choice in the matter when the alien fleet arrived, and I was forced to engage once it was clear that the opposing armor was going to discover our location. After being hit by the ortillery, I was just trying to keep Ed and myself alive." Hackett nodded and motioned for him to settle down.

"We aren't here to condemn your actions, Lieutenant. The point just needed to be made. It would have been much less likely that you would have been discovered if you had powered down on an unoccupied planet or moon, but you made the best out of a bad situation. The _Hard Boiled's_ capture along with the destruction of Zulu company was somewhat out of your hands-" Shepard cut in before Hackett could continue.

"The dropship got captured? Is the crew ok?" Kahoku sighed and shook his head.

"The majority of the crew was killed. There were only three survivors. The Retaliator accompanying it was destroyed when it tried to buy time for the dropship to escape once the two had been forced to degauss the MAD drives." John's shoulders drooped and he felt like someone had punched him in the gut. He had been given command of a mech company, a dropship, a bomber, and a lance of fighters, and only five people had walked away from it.

"Lieutenant Shepard, you may have been discovered no matter where you landed. It is unknown. You did the best that you could after landing, and that is to be commended. This was a job with a large number of unknowns, as you were evading a species we have never encountered. The fact that you got out at all is a testament to your command acumen. Hackett and I are going to decide what to do about that frigate that is watching us. You are dismissed." Shepard went back to attention and saluted before exiting the cabin. John asked the guard for directions, and moved towards the medical wing to check on his XO.

_15 Oct 3805, Hercules System, .7 AU orbit over Hercules_

"Solus, try opening comms with one of the alien dreadnaughts."

"Sent, no reply from ship. Probable that alien ships unable to communicate via mass effect comms." Kirrahe frowned and Matriarch Aethyta nodded at him.

"Begin to slowly move towards the fleet. Keep trying to contact them. Weapons offline, reroute power to engines. If they fire at us, FTL to the relay."

_15 Oct 3805, Hercules System, 800km over Eletania_

The speakers in the Admiral's stateroom crackled to life.

"Gentlemen, the alien frigate is moving towards us slowly. We also keep getting hit with some kind of energy reading that we can't identify." Kahoku stood quickly and began talking as he arrived at the door.

"Keep an eye on it. Have the _Jutland_ and _Waterloo _maintain their distance towards the target, moving back towards the fleet. I will be on the bridge shortly."

An hour later and the alien ship was 5000km from the fleet. Kahoku ordered a warning shot to be fired in order to signal it to halt, which it did abruptly. After a few minutes, a small shuttle sized craft emerged from the ship, and slowly flew around the fleet before landing on the surface of Eletania.

Hackett smiled.

"I think they are trying to tell us something." Kahoku nodded and turned to his fellow commander and senior Marine of the fleet, Marshal Williams.

"It's your ball game now."

_15 Oct 3805, Hercules System, Eletania_

Nihlus fidgeted in his armor, quadruple checking his weapons. Aethyta rolled her eyes at the Turian's antics. If the aliens turned hostile, there was nothing they could do but submit. For his part, Kirrahe seemed to be studying the ship, no doubt to be included in some report made after the fact. The Matriarch looked up as the giant ship approached. The egg-shaped craft left her slightly confused, as every other craft of the aliens she had seen was angular and dangerous looking, with fins and flowing lines. The giant egg was almost comical in comparison. Looking closely at the ship, she could see that weapons had been deployed from behind armored doors, and said weapons were all pointing directly at them. The ship landed about two kilometers from their shuttle gently on four long legs. The large door opened and a ramp was lowered. She gasped at what she saw.

The footage earlier was not exactly clear, and nobody could exactly tell what it was that exited the alien craft. Now they knew. Huge machines over a dozen meters tall walked out and down the ramp, approaching them. The ground tremored slightly with each step of the giants as the three Council ambassadors were surrounded. Eight of the machines stood in a rough semicircle around the ambassadors about 100 meters in front of them and to the sides, with four more standing several hundred meters behind, presumably to cut off any escape. Kryik narrowed his eyes at the formation. The current formation would allow all of the machines to fire at them without the danger of friendly fire. The aliens clearly were tactically proficient. At this point, a strange machine was rolled out of the cargo bay and two rotor blades began spinning. The craft took flight and landed just behind the machines. A group of five aliens disembarked before walking to the trio of ambassadors. It was clear that all were armed, and four of them had rifles of some sort grasped comfortably in their hands. The one not holding a weapon walked several paces forward, stopping within thirty feet of the trio. He slowly unclipped his belt, and tossed it aside and waited. Kirrahe mirrored the alien's actions before turning to the Turian.

"Nihlus, discard your weapons. If they want to kill us it isn't like they are going to help anyways." The Spectre looked like he had eaten something sour, and slowly deposited his four weapons in a neat pile behind him before stepping away. The alien walked forward and held out his hand before saying something which they didn't understand. Kirrahe and Kryik looked puzzled, but Aethyta figured he wanted the gesture reciprocated. She walked to within five feet and held her hand out as well. The figure laughed slightly before closing the distance between them cautiously and grasping his hand in hers, moving it up and down. He pointed at himself and said a word.

"Human." The Asari was delighted that they seemed willing to get to know the Ambassadors, even if he was only willing to do so with overwhelming firepower behind him. She stepped forward once, and the alien seemed slightly uncomfortable in their close proximity. She placed her hands on his shoulders and bowed her head briefly before raising it. She caught the man looking trying to look anywhere but her bust. _I guess men are the same everywhere._

"Embrace eternity!"

They appeared in his memories. She saw another human, which Aethyta guessed to be his mate, smiling at another, younger, image of him with four daughters. She saw a beautiful water world, with metal cities that stretched into a clear blue sky. Another flash revealed a second world that was cold and seemingly inhospitable, but which also had great cities. She kept going back in his mind before she arrived at memories he seemingly didn't actively remember. His first words, his first steps. Learning in a schoolroom about his native language and history. The Matriarch was slightly disturbed at some of the history she discovered about this new race. Judging that it was enough, she ended the mind meld and stepped away from him. He seemed slightly disoriented and turned back to the other soldiers behind him.

"What the hell was that? How long was I out?" Another man behind him responded.

"What's wrong sir? She just put her hands on your shoulders and said something. It was over in a second or two." She regained the man's attention before responding in a language she now knew was called English.

"Greetings, Marshal Gregory Williams. I am Matriarch Aethyta. I would like to greet you on behalf of the Citadel Council and Asari Republics. I hope that our species will share a peaceful and prosperous relationship." She was greeted with silence. Finally, Williams responded.

"What did you do and how do you learn our language suddenly?"

"I conducted what is known by my people as a mind meld. I accessed your memories to learn about you and your race, including your language. I also shared with you some details of the Citadel and Asari races. I elected to avoid all military related memories. If you will allow it, I would like to transmit an English translator to my two colleagues' omni-tools so that they can communicate with you as well." The Marshal nodded his permission and rubbed his head. She activated her omni-tool and transmitted the language patch to the Turian and Salarian.

"A meld can be overwhelming the first time you experience it, but the feeling will pass shortly. Are you well, Gregory?"

"I will be fine."

"I am glad. I am Matriarch Aethyta, an Asari. With me are Spectre Nihlus Kryik of the Turian Hierarchy and Captain Kirrahe of the Salarain Union. We are ambassadors and represent the Citadel Council, which is the governing body of the majority of the galaxy. We would like to extend your Systems Alliance an invitation to the Citadel in order to speak with our leaders."

"Who were those other aliens, then? The ones that attacked us?" Nihlus scoffed at his question before answering.

"Those vermin are known as Batarians. They are a client race of the Council, but constantly cause problems. After attacking you unprovoked and launching a mass accelerator strike on this garden world, they will likely be expelled from the Citadel though. Between that and the constant pirating, raiding, and slaving, the Council has lost patience for the barbarians."

"Well, I am glad to hear that you don't condone their actions. I also appreciate your offer, but I don't have the authority to accept or deny it. I am just a Marshal. I command the Marine detachment for the fleet that is in orbit around the planet. This will have to go to the parliament to be decided on. If you would like, I can take you to the Admiral in charge of the fleet. He isn't my superior, and only holds as much authority as me, but he can send a message home and wait for a response."

"We would greatly appreciate that."

An hour later, the ambassadors arrived in the hangar bay of the _Constellation._ They were surprised upon entering that they needed to wait for the hangar doors to close and the bay to be pressurized before they could exit. They were equally surprised at the lack of gravity on the ship. After an uncomfortable wait, trio disembarked and was guided through a decontamination system before being escorted through the ship. Nihlus and Kirrahe were allowed to carry their weapons stowed on their magnetic clips. The crew around the ship stopped and stared as they entered each section before being reprimanded to get back to work. After being introduced to the two human Admirals, the human ship transmitted a message to Terra II using something called a Hyperpulse Generator. The ambassadors were forced to sit and wait for a reply. It came 42 minutes later.

_Proceed to the Citadel with the Constellation. Remaining Second Fleet forces report back to Shanxi. Report back on situation as able._

_A/N_

_Wow, I checked the traffic on the story and I was pretty stunned to see so many people had read the first two chapters! Reviews really help me out a lot. If you don't like something in the story, then please do not hesitate to let me know! I also still haven't made my decision regarding a LI in KoES. This is probably my biggest hole in story planning, as so much could change based on who it ends up being. Your input on the matter is welcome. Unfortunately, a chapter a week may prove to be impractical to promise with real life getting in the way. I will do my best to post weekly or every other week. All reviews will be read and considered in future chapters. If you want to, feel free to shoot me a PM about the story, yourself, myself, the weather, etc. I neglected to respond to the two reviews I got from chapter 1, and chapter 2 got some reviews, so here goes._

_Wolf: Thanks for the review! I am glad you liked it!_

_Darkmando: Thank you for the review! I was pretty shocked to see the relatively few number of Battletech related fanfics on the site, and I hope that this story will help that._

_OMAC001: Alliance/Citadel relations are going to be a huge part of this story; probably more so than combat. As you can probably see with how this chapter ended, chapter 4 will start getting deep into diplomatic relations, and chapter 5 will include more of that as well. KoES has been very combat-oriented in the first few chapters to kind of show what the some of the combat will be like in the story (both mechanized and infantry based) and to build interest. I was afraid a lot of people would get pretty bored and hit the back button in the opening few paragraphs of chapter 1 when I was universe building to be honest._

_Jabbarules: I don't really want to say yes or no about that quite yet due to the potential of spoilers. I have a pretty good idea of where KoES will be heading in the long-term, and have events in mind that are relevant in this ME AU through the complete ME trilogy. I will say that if there are other humans coming into the story, it will definitely not be in the next few chapters._

_FranticHamster: Yeah, it wasn't the best command decision by any means. It would have been a lot safer to land on an uninhabited moon/rocky planet in the system and hide, which is how I first planned the chapter out. I am trying to depict Shepard as a good (but flawed) commander. He doesn't always make the right call. This is definitely one of these times. I also wanted an opportunity to write some mech and infantry based combat, and the next few chapters probably aren't going to contain much (if any) of that. I appreciate the feedback!_

_dragonzoid2001: I am glad you like it so far! Battletech is a pretty awesome universe. There are over 50 books on it, and several great games as well. If you are interested, check chapter 1's author notes for some recommended reading. Epubs are the best way to get the books that I have found. Mechwarrior 3 is an amazing game, but can be difficult to run on modern computers. Mechwarrior 4 and Mechwarrior 4:Mercenaries are enjoyable games, and while not as good as MW3, it is still a blast; and easier to get to work. Mechwarrior: Online is the newest game in the franchise, but does not contain any single player story based mode. It is free to play, and can be fun, but be prepared to drop $20 or so for mechbays if you really want to get into it. Battletech also has a board game variant similar to how D&amp;D works. There is a free program called MegaMek that allows you to play the board game online with people, or against the computer._

_fuzzyidioms: Haha, will do!_

_Blackholelord: I included a preface to this chapter to address this. I love sarna, as it is a great tool to use. Thanks for the review!_

_Codex:_

_HPG: The Hyperpulse Generator uses KF based physics to send a message up to 1000ly instantly. Like a KF drive, it takes a week to charge, but is charged using the onboard ship power plant instead of a solar sail. Each cruiser sized vessel and larger carries one HPG, while Terra II and Shanxi house a farm of a dozen. It can contain video, text, image, or sound files, but is incapable of maintaining a connection with another HPG. Thus, real time communication back and forth or live video chat is not possible._

_McKenna II Battleship: The McKenna II Battleship is based on the nearly 1200 year old original design. It is the heaviest hitting warship in the Systems Alliance arsenal, and for all purposes can be considered comparable to a Citadel dreadnaught. It is 1405m long, masses 1,930,000 tons, and has a crew of 758. It is armed with 12 huge class 40 naval autocannons, 12 large naval lasers, 6 capital class LRM 50's, and a staggering 48 heavy naval PPCs. While Every other ship in the human arsenal typically fires forward, the majority of the McKenna II's firepower is held in its broadside. The McKenna II is also unique in that it houses two HPGs, allowing it to send a message, receive a response, and then send another message instantly._

_Interdiction class carrier: The Interdiction class carrier is based on the old wet navy tradition of aircraft carriers. Able to carry a huge array of fighters, bombers, and dropships, the Alliance's Interdiction class carrier is actually what each fleet is built around, and are considered more tactically important than the McKenna II Battleships. An Interdiction class carrier is 1610m long, masses 2,140,000 tons, and carries a crew and marine compliment of 5750. It is armed with 6 large pulse laser defense turrets, 18 paired medium laser defense turrets, and 30 point defense laser anti-missile systems._

_Overlord III: The Overlord III is effectively the bigger brother of the Union Mk IVdropship. While the Union can only carry a mech company, the Overlord can carry a full mech battalion of 40 mechs along with aerospace support, artillery, recon, medical, and other support personnel. The Overlord III is 99m long, masses 9,700 tons, and has a crew of 43 (not including the battalion personnel). It is armed with mech-class armaments consisting of 6 PPCs, 2 AC20s, 6AC5s, 12 medium lasers, 6 large lasers, and 3 LRM20s._

_Heavy Class Weaponry: Weaponry is divided ascendingly into handheld, mech/vehicle class, and capital class. Mech/vehicle and capital sized weapons also have heavy variants available which deal vastly more damage at the cost of extreme power requirements and heat generation._


End file.
